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| PRAY for the dead—who bids thee not? | |
| Do all our human loves grow pale, | |
| Or are the old needs all forgot | |
| When men have passed within the veil? | |
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| Shall prayer’s strong pleadings pierce the skies | 5 |
| For those we still keep with us here, | |
| And not a single wish arise | |
| For loved ones in a happier sphere? | |
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| Have they no conquests yet to win, | |
| No rugged heights of truth to climb; | 10 |
| Does no strange syllable of sin | |
| Mar the soft cadence of their rhyme; | |
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| Or has God snapped the strong, sweet ties | |
| He took such loving pains to weld, | |
| And said, “Henceforth their memories | 15 |
| In prayerless silence must be held”? | |
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| Pray for the dead: the links that bound | |
| Thy soul to theirs were forged on high; | |
| Borne upward, they have surely found | |
| The chain still fastened in the sky. | 20 |
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| And who of us so wise to say | |
| That they have lost the need of prayer! | |
| Heaven’s gates are not so far away | |
| That earth goes unremembered there. | |
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| Pray for the dead, nor dare repress | 25 |
| Thy longings at the throne of grace; | |
| Our dead ones are more dear, not less, | |
| In the pure presence of God’s face. | |
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| And strength and faith are needed, there | |
| As here, inspired life to win— | 30 |
| Nor see alone the gateways fair | |
| Of Heaven’s great life, but enter in. | |
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| Love well and pray for all thy dead: | |
| God gives thee such sweet liberty, | |
| He means where’er their souls are sped, | 35 |
| That they shall be in touch with thee. | |
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