• BOOKS BRING ME FRIENDS
• WHERE'ER ON EARTH I BE.
• SOLACE OF SOLITUDE&
• BONDS OF SOCIETY!

   

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• “The silver cord is loosed,” he said,
• “The golden bowl is broken;
• A few more prayers having been prayed,
• A few more love-words spoken
• I shall turn my face unto the wall,
• And sleeping, not be woken.

• “Yet a short while, mamma, —dear friends,
• Yet but a little space, —
• And the shadows will have shut me in
• 10That gather round my face.
• But do not therefore weep; I go
• To Heaven, a better place.”

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• Is it a better place, my child,
• That thou art gone unto?
• Upon this earth that thou hast left
• Hadst thou not much to do?
• Would not thy joys have been a crowd
• And thy troubles small and few?

• Hadst thou not wealth, and are there not
• 20Those who do lack for bread,
• Who would have looked to thee, their hope,
• To be taught and comforted? —
• And the naked to be clothed by thee,
• And the hungry to be fed.

• Hadst thou not friends, and were they not
• Those friends who love us most
• I'the world? And would'st thou not have borne
• A name which is the boast
• Not of thy house alone, but all
• 30England from coast to coast?

• And beauty too was thine: thou hadst
• The look that Angels have
• Who from their Heaven behold our earth
• Where Grief is and the Grave,
• And joy in the many souls there are
• For them to help and save.

• And many thou hast helped, dear child,
• And savèd, verily;
• Thy spirit was a Temple for
• 40Christ-hearted charity;
• Yea, the loud prayers of he rescued poor
• Have often followed thee.

• And Genius lit within thy breast
• An upward flame and strong; —
• Genius, begetting Poesy,
• Whose hoard of hidden song,
• Lying at thy warm heart, would soon
• Have risen to thy tongue.

• Beauty, and rank, and friends, and wealth,
• 50Genius and excellence, —
• Could not all these, thy heritage,
• Win thee from hastening hence?
• Was the soul so much more unto thee
• Than joys of mind and sense?

• For nobles would have courted thee;
• Thou wouldst have seen thy name
• A star to the world; the great and wise,
• As sunshine to a gem,
• Would have been drawn to thee, —thyself
• 60Being as one of them.

• And, bending with an English grace,
• The ladies of our isle,
• With their soft curls and their virgin eyes
• Which look so sweet all the while,
• Had given thee for thy nobleness
• A precious golden smile.

• These will not be thine: thy life's
• Appointed period
• Being past o'er, thou liest on
• 70The folded pinions broad
• Of the Seraph who is bearing thee
• Up through the sun to God.

• It has a solemn sound — “to God”;
• And strange high thoughts it weaves
• Of a garden where the Tree of Life
• In mystic shadows gives,
• And the music of the rapid worlds
• Is the wind that stirs the leaves.

• Yet thou! — the brave, deep-thoughted child,
• 80Whom Love and Sympathy
• And Admiration gathered round
• And worshipped! — Can it be
• That there is anywhere, in truth,
• “A better place” for thee?

• Pause awhile, cherub, in thy song;
• Let thy curl-shaded face
• Lean to us from thy heavenly seat
• With the old childish grace;
• And tell us, dearest — Is it there,
• 90Truly, “a better place?”

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• What have I asked? Do I so love
• Life then, and cling thereby;
• As to make all this marvel that
• The heaven-home, hushed and high,
• Should be a better place for one
• So far more pure than I?

• Surely, it is a better place:
• Wealth shuts not there his ken
• From woes his heart yearns to assuage;
• 100Nor noble origin
• Wounds him by lessening trust betwixt
• Him and his fellow-men.

• Nor Genius, with sunny eyes
• Whose light sets like the sun,
• Gives to him, as to the dear child
• She chooseth for her own,
• Her laurel-wreath which maketh white
• The hair it resteth on;

• Nor friends die from him, but instead
• 110Come to him where he is;
• Nor Passion, rank with evil joys
• And worse satieties,
• Pouting her crimson lips at him
• Layeth her cheek to his;

• Nor priests be there, like a bad dream
• That at your bed's foot stands
• All night (and yet it goes at last!)
• Nor moans of king-curst lands
• Make his breast heave and his pale brow
• 120To drop into his hands.

• But Love walks always with him now;
• And Faith, not chained but free;
• And Hope, bent forward, and with hair
• Held back continually
• To hear the chariot-wheels;
• And wise, calm Charity.

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