I thread the crowded street;
    A satchelled lad I meet,
With the same beaming eyes and colored hair;
    And, as he’s running by,
    Follow him with my eye,
Scarcely believing that—­he is not there!

    I know his face is hid
    Under the coffin lid;
Closed are his eyes; cold is his forehead fair;
    My hand that marble felt;
    O’er it in prayer I knelt;
Yet my heart whispers that—­he is not there!

    I cannot make him dead! 
    When passing by the bed,
So long watched over with parental care,
    My spirit and my eye
    Seek him inquiringly,
Before the thought comes, that—­he is not there!

    When, at the cool gray break
    Of day, from sleep I wake. 
With my first breathing of the morning air
    My soul goes up, with joy,
    To Him who gave my boy;
Then comes the sad thought that—­he is not there!

    When at the day’s calm close,
    Before we seek repose,
I’m with his mother, offering up our prayer;
    Whate’er I may be saying,
    I am in spirit praying
For our boy’s spirit, though—­he is not there!

    Not there!—­Where, then, is he? 
    The form I used to see
Was but the raiment that he used to wear. 
    The grave, that now doth press
    Upon that cast-off dress,
Is but his wardrobe locked—­he is not there!

    He lives!—­In all the past
    He lives; nor, to the last,
Of seeing him again will I despair;
    In dreams I see him now;
    And, on his angel brow,
I see it written, “Thou shalt see me there!”
Yes, we all live to God! 
    Father, thy chastening rod
So help us, thine afflicted ones, to bear,
    That, in the spirit land,
    Meeting at thy right hand,
’Twill be our heaven to find that—­he is there!

JOHN PIERPONT.

SONG.

She’s somewhere in the sunlight strong,
  Her tears are in the falling rain,
She calls me in the wind’s soft song,
  And with the flowers she comes again.

Yon bird is but her messenger,
  The moon is but her silver car;
Yea! sun and moon are sent by her,
  And every wistful waiting star.

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE.

THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS.

There is a Reaper whose name is Death,
  And, with his sickle keen,
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
  And the flowers that grow between.

“Shall I have naught that is fair?” saith he;
  “Have naught but the bearded grain?—­
Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,
  I will give them all back again.”

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,
  He kissed their drooping leaves;
It was for the Lord of Paradise
  He bound them in his sheaves.