  Turn from the grave, turn from the grave, There’s fearful mystery there; Descend not to the shadowy tomb, If thou wouldst shun despair. It tells a tale of severed ties To break the bleeding heart, And from the “canopy of dust” Would make it death to part. Oh! lift the eye of faith to worlds Where death shall never come, And there behold “the pure in heart” Whom God has gathered home, Beyond the changing things of time, Beyond the reach of care. How sweet to view the ransomed ones In dazzling glory there! They seem to whisper to the loved Who smoothed their path below, “Weep not for us, our tears have all Forever ceased to flow.” Take from the grave, take from the grave, Those bright, but withering; flowers, The spirit that had loved them once Is now in fadeless bowers; Undying is the fragrance there, Eternal is the bloom; This perishing perfume. One fearful stamp, “Doomed to decay,” Marks all the joys of earth; Oh! what a resting-place for souls Of an immortal birth! Then linger round the grave no more, Lift, lift the eye to Heaven, Till hues of faith shall gild the gloom, And every sigh’s forgiven. Then, when the golden harvest’s done, The path of duty trod, Thou with the loved may’st garnered be, And gathered home to God. 1828.
Hush, hush! my thoughts are resting on a changeless world of bliss; Oh! come not with the voice of mirth to lure them back to this. ’Tis true, we’ve much of sadness in our weary sojourn here, That fades, and leaves no deeper trace than childhood’s reckless tear; But there are woes which scathe the heart till all its bloom is o’er, A deadly blight we feel but once, that once for evermore. Oh, then, ’tis sweet on fancy’s wing to cleave that bright domain! The loved and the redeemed are there, why lure me back again? The cadences of gladness to your hearts may yet be dear; They have no melody for mine, all, all is desert here. The sunshine still is bright to you, the moonlight and the flowers; To me they tell a harrowing tale of dear departed hours. And can I love the sunshine, when it smiles upon the tomb? When on one little hallowed spot its joyous beams are thrown, That sacred turf—the all of earth—I now may call my own. For there my joys are sepulchred, my hopes are buried there; Yet with that holy earth are linked high thoughts that mock despair; Unfaltering faith, that whispers of a purer world than this, Where spirits that are parted here may “mingle into bliss;” “Deep trust” that all our sinless hopes, which death forbids to bloom, Shall ripen ’neath the cloudless sky that dawns beyond the tomb; Conviction firm that things of time were never yet designed To quench the vast and deathless thirst of an immortal mind. Then hush! my thoughts are resting on a changeless world of bliss; There is no voice of gladness now can lure them back to this. And take the weary captive to Thy paradise in Heaven; Or teach my heart resignedly to say, “Thy will be done,” And calmly wait thy summons home, thou just and holy One! Thou mayst have spoiled my cherished schemes, to let my spirit see That happiness is only found, great God, in serving Thee. 1828. |
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