MAY YOU DIE AMONG YOUR KINDRED! MRS ABDY. "How much is expressed by the form of Oriental benediction- 'May you die among your kindred!'" "MAY you die among your kindred: " may you rest your parting gaze On the loved familiar faces of your young and happy days: May the voices whose kind greeting to your infancy was dear Pour lovingly, while life declines, their music in your ear! List to your fainting accents, and receive your last request, Read your unuttered wishes, on your changeful features dwell, And mingle sighs of sorrow with your faltering faint farewell! 66 May you die among your kindred:" may your peaceful grave be made In the quiet cool recesses of the churchyard's hallowed shade: There may your loved ones wander at the silent close of day, Fair buds and fragrant blossoms on the verdant turf to lay! 'Tis a tender benediction; yet methinks it lacks the power To cast a true serenity o'er life's last solemn hour; Ye, whom I love, I may not thus love's Christian part fulfil; List, while I ask for you a boon more dear, more precious still. So may you die that, though afar from all your cherished ties, Though strangers hear your dying words, and close your dying eyes, Ye shall not know desertion, since your Saviour shall be near, To fill your fainting spirit with the "love that casts out fear." So may you die, so willingly submit your soul to God, That evermore your kindred, as they tread the path you trod, May picture your existence on a far-off heavenly shore, And speak of you as one not "lost," but only "gone before." So may you die, that when your death to pious friends is known, Each shall devoutly, meekly, wish such lot may be their own; Not heeding if you died in want, in exile, or in pain, But feeling that you died in faith, and thus "to die is gain!" (Originat.) THE ENTRANCE OF A CHRISTIAN INTO HEAVEN. EMMELİNE DRUMMOND. THE struggle was o'er, the valley past, He heard the sound of the angels' harps, But his place was before the Saviour's throne, He needed not to be told the note Which was sung by the shining throng, 'Twas the favourite theme of his praise on earth; It had been his dying song. Louder and louder swelled the sound Of the angels' glorious strain "Worthy the Lamb who was slain for man, O'er heaven and earth to reign!" |