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| HOW shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps | |
| The disembodied spirits of the dead, | |
| When all of thee that time could wither sleeps | |
| And perishes among the dust we tread? | |
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| For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain | 5 |
| If there I meet thy gentle presence not; | |
| Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again | |
| In thy serenest eyes the tender thought. | |
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| Will not thy own meek heart demand me there? | |
| That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given; | 10 |
| My name on earth was ever in thy prayer, | |
| And wilt thou never utter it in heaven? | |
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| In meadows fanned by heaven’s life-breathing wind, | |
| In the resplendence of that glorious sphere, | |
| And larger movements of the unfettered mind, | 15 |
| Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here? | |
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| The love that lived through all the stormy past, | |
| And meekly with my harsher nature bore, | |
| And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last. | |
| Shall it expire with life, and be no more? | 20 |
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| A happier lot than mine, and larger light, | |
| Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy will | |
| In cheerful homage to the rule of right, | |
| And lovest all, and renderest good for ill. | |
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| For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell, | 25 |
| Shrink and consume my heart, as heat the scroll; | |
| And wrath has left its scar—that fire of hell | |
| Has left its frightful scar upon my soul. | |
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| Yet though thou wear’st the glory of the sky, | |
| Wilt thou not keep the same belovèd name, | 30 |
| The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye, | |
| Lovelier in heaven’s sweet climate, yet the same? | |
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| Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home, | |
| The wisdom that I learned so ill in this— | |
| The wisdom which is love—till I become | 35 |
| Thy fit companion in that land of bliss? | |
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