"O HATEFUL Death!" my angry spirit cries, "Who thus couldst take my darling from my sight, Shrouding her beauty in sepulchral night; O cruel! unto prayers and tears and sighs Inexorable!" "Hush!" my soul replies; "Be just, O stricken heart! the mortal strife Which we call 'death' is birth to higher life. Safe in the Father's Mansion in the skies, She bides thy coming; only gone before A little while, that at thy parting breath Thou mayst endure a lighter pain of death, And gladlier pass beyond this earthly shore; For, with thy Laura calling from on high, It cannot, sure, be very hard to die." |