The Voice Of The Dead.
By Mary Gardiner Horsford
Oh! call us not silent,
The throng of the dead!
Though in visible being
No longer we tread
The pathways of earth,
From the grave and the sky,
From the halls of the Past
And the star-host on high,
We speak to the spirit
In language divine;
List, Mortal, our song,
Ere its burden be thine.
Our labor is finished,
Our race it is run;
The guerdon eternal
Is lost or is won;
A beautiful gift
Is the life thou dost share;
Bewail not its sorrow,
Despise not its care;
The rainbow of Hope
Spans the ocean of Time;
High triumph and holy
Makes conflict sublime.
Work ever! Life's moments
Are fleeting and brief;
Behind is the burden,
Before, the relief.
Work nobly! the deed
Liveth bright in the Past,
When the spirit that planned
Is at rest from the blast;
Work nobly! the Infinite
Spreads to thy sight,
The higher thou soarest
The stronger thy flight.
And when from thy vision
Loved faces shall wane,
And thy heart-strings thrill wildly
With anguish and pain;
The voices that now
Are as faint as the tone
Of the Zephyr, that stirs not
The rose on its throne,
Shall burst on thy soul,--
An orchestra divine,
With seraph and cherub
From Deity's shrine.