DEATH THE DOORWAY.

Let not your soul be saddened by dread of darksome death; Immortal life depends not upon the mortal breath. Behold this worm; no creature more helpless can be found, Yet this, too, has a future, by death upraised, unbound. It crawls its brief existence till Summer’s sun has fled; Then lies in cocoon shrouded and, as a worm, is dead. But when the warmth of Spring-time breaks through its silent tomb, On radiant wings it floats on air, and sips the flower’s perfume. And yet the self-same spirit that moved the creeping thing, Now flutters in this moth’s light form and on its rainbow-wing. ... Out of the acorn’s foulness that now lies here decayed, Shall rise the giant oak-tree, with broadly spreading shade: And every seed that’s buried and seems to rot away, But proves that death is doorway unto a higher day; But proves that death is needful to loose the spirit’s wings, And that all life is only the germ of better things. Alexander Jeffrey.