Classic Poem

Who that can feel the gentleness of Death,
Sees not the loveliness of Life? and who,
Breathing content his natural joyous breath,
Could fail to feel that Death is Nature, too?
And not the alien foe his fears dictated,
A viewless terror, heard but to be hated.

One died that was beloved of all around;
And, dying, grasped a flower of early spring,
To hold beside her in the quiet ground,
While every season shook its varied wing.
The pale flower died with her; but soon rose others,
Not planted by her sisters or her brothers.

Her sisters and her brothers came each day,
And wondered to behold the young fresh flowers,
Like that she held before she pass'd away—
Warm'd by the sun and cherished by the showers:
And they would not believe the sweet bird's sowing
Had brought the flowers about her gravestone growing.

They said—These flowers are offspring of the same
That lies beside our sister underneath;
And unto us as messengers they came
From her, and we will bind them in a wreath,
To hang amid the dews that glisten purely,
And every spring will say, “she liveth surely.”

So thus Death grew to them most holy sweet;
A bringer and a taker of all love:
The link to that which lay beneath their feet,
The bond of all they looked for from above.
His gentleness was on them, and His duty
Gave all their future life redoubled beauty.