POETRY.
AT PARTING.
So, with a last Good-bye, In this grey hour you die
']o us, as we to yon ; rafting is dying too,
And distance, heart to heart despairing saith,
Is but a name for Deatb.
To-morrow we shall say, "Oar thoughts reflect to-day His quiet room upstairs, The lonely look it wears ; For all the house seems desolate and dim With want of only him."
What household things shall stand. Hallowed, because your hand Has touched them ! We shall miss Your help in that or this, And treasure even trivial words you said As memories of the dead.
You will bear with you thus Remembrances of us ; And, writing now and then Of stranger lands and men, Your tidings from afar shall reach us here As from another sphere : Just as if you, at last, That greater sea had passed Whose winds and waters yearn Outwards, and never turn, And, looking through the waste of silence lone,. You called from the Unknown.
Even Death is nothing more Than opening of a door Through which men pass away As stars into the day, And we, who see not, blinded by the light, Cry, "They are lost in Night ! "
Thus ever, near or far, Life seems but where we are; Yet those we bid Good-bye Find Death is not to die, As you, departing from our daily strife, Go hence from Life to Life.
Clasp hands, and now Farewell !
The word's a passing knell, But ripening year by year Life triumphs there as here, Nor dark nor silent would the distance be
Could we but hear and see.
A. ST. JOHN ADCOCK.
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