And buoyant, bright-haired children. Eagerly The sweet-remembered faces that are gone. Mysteriously a dread and unseen hand Gleams forth, with iris beauty, through the storm, Shall be rejoined again; that we shall meet, Set to our love by God's own sovereign hand, "Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am. Behold, thou hast made my days as a hand breadth, and mine age is as nothing before thee.” — PSALM xxxix. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest."- ECCLESIASTES ix. CONSOLATION. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. ALL are not taken; there are left behind No love in all the world to answer me, Where "dust to dust" the love from life disjoined, - CONSOLATORY EPISTLE. ST. BASIL. IT is the command of God not to lament the dead, in the faith of Christ, because of the hope of the resurrection, and that there are great crowns laid up for great patience. If we suffer reason to sing these things in our ears, we may find some moderate end of this evil; and therefore I exhort thee, as a generous combatant, to fortify thyself against the heaviness of this stroke, and not lie down under the weight of sorrow. Being persuaded, that though the reason of God's dispensations are out of our reach, yet we ought entirely to accept that which is ordered. by one so wise and loving, although it be heavy and grievous to be borne; for he knows how to appoint to every one what is profitable, and why he hath set unequal terms to our life. The cause is incomprehensible by us, why some are carried away sooner, and others tarry longer in this toilsome and miserable life; so that we ought, in all things, to adore his loving kindness, and not to take any thing ill at his hands, remembering the great and famous voice of Job, who, when he heard that his ten children were all struck dead in one moment, said, "The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away as it pleased the Lord, so it is come to pass." Let us make this admirable language our 60 THE MUCH-LOVED DEAD. own. They are rewarded, with an equal recompense, by the just Judge, who perform the same worthy actions. We are not robbed of a friend, but only have restored him to the Lender; nor is his life extinct, but only translated to a better. The earth doth not cover our beloved, but heaven hath received him: let us tarry a while, and we shall be in his company. "But the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord: he is their strength in the time of trouble. And the Lord shall help them; he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in him."PSALM XXXvii. THE MUCH-LOVED DEAD. MARY E. LEE. "O LA vita! O la morte! Belle e dolce morir, fee certo allora, TASSO. THE dead! the much-loved dead! What heart but asks, with ceaseless tone, We cannot blot them out From memory's written page; We cannot count them strangers; but, As birds in prison cage, We beat against the iron bar That keeps us from these friends afar. Oblivion may not hang Its curtain o'er their grave; Grief cannot win them back; For some low answer that may roll But is our love returned? Is memory's hearth now cold and dark Where once the heart-fire burned? Nor do the laborers now gone home Look for the weary ones to come? We wrong them by the thought. Man is still man, where'er he goes - Which links us, as with fetters fast, |