Classic Poem

[ EMERSON HOUGH , 1857ÔÇô1923]

Time brings not death, it brings but changes;
I know he rides, but rides afar,
To-day some other planet ranges
And camps to-night upon a star
Where all his other comrades are.

For there were those who rode before him,
As there are these he leaves behind;
Although from us time's changes before him,
Out there our comrade still will find
The kinship of the comrade mind.

Time brings us change and leaves us fretting;
We weep when every comrade goes —
Perhaps too much, perhaps forgetting
That over yonder there are those
To whom he comes and whom he knows.

I would not hold our loss too lightly;
God knows, and he, how deep the pain;
But, friends, I see still shining brightly
The brightest link in all our chain
That links us with a new domain.

For this I swear, because believing:
Time breaks no circle such as this.
However hurt, however grieving,
However much a friend we miss,
Between the worlds is no abyss.

For friendship binds the worlds together —
World over there, world over here.
From earth to heaven is the tether
That brings the earth and heaven near
And makes them both a bit more dear.

Not weaker now our chain, but stronger;
In all our loss and all our ill
We now shall look a little longer
At every star above the hill
And think of him, and have him still.

Whatever vales we yet may wander,
What sorrow come, what tempest blow,
We have a friend, a friend out yonder,
To greet us when we have to go —
Out yonder someone that we know.

To all eternity he binds us;
He links the planet and the star;
He rides ahead, the trail he finds us,
And where he is and where we are
Will never seem again so far.