Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Arthur Wentworth HamiltonEaton

1177 Pray for the Dead

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?

Shall prayer’s strong pleadings pierce the skies

For those we still keep with us here,

And not a single wish arise

For loved ones in a happier sphere?

Have they no conquests yet to win,

No rugged heights of truth to climb;

Does no strange syllable of sin

Mar the soft cadence of their rhyme;

Or has God snapped the strong, sweet ties

He took such loving pains to weld,

And said, “Henceforth their memories

In prayerless silence must be held”?

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.

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.

Pray for the dead, nor dare repress

Thy longings at the throne of grace;

Our dead ones are more dear, not less,

In the pure presence of God’s face.

And strength and faith are needed, there

As here, inspired life to win—

Nor see alone the gateways fair

Of Heaven’s great life, but enter in.

Love well and pray for all thy dead:

God gives thee such sweet liberty,

He means where’er their souls are sped,

That they shall be in touch with thee.