Classic Poem

Wherefore this speculation about death,
And whether there be still a life beyond?
If good for us that life outlast the breath,
Then life will be the bond.

For what is good will surely be fulfill'd
And if beyond this life blank death be best,
Then, also, be our speculation still'd,
And ours an equal rest

Alas! no rest for doubt-awaken'd mind.
Rest for the lives that batten in the fields:
But man leaves his complacencies behind,
And ever upward builds.

And daily his old truths become untrue
Life fails him if no further hope he see
He seeks a higher truth, a larger view,
Intenselier to be .

To live, to live , is life's great joy — to feel
The living God within — to look abroad,
And, in the beauty that all things reveal,
Still meet the living God.

To close this joy in death were surely loss;
And thus the question comes, Is death the close?
We cannot rest in dread, but reach across
The doubts that interpose.

And there we catch the glimpses of a faith,
That throws new light around our mortal strife,
And teaches that the avenue of death
Leads through to fuller life.

This speculative struggle of the soul
May come as exercise to feeble limbs;
And doubt, that keeps in cloud the unreach'd goal,
Increase the power that climbs.