Classic Poem

There's a region afar from earth
Should be very happy to-day;
For a sweet soul, ripe for its birth,
Has flown from its prison away.
And I think, as I muse alone,
While the night is falling around,
Of a cold, white, glimmering stone,
And a desolate, grassy mound;
Of eyes that will shine never more,
Of hands that have finished their task;—
And my heart is heavy and sore,
And my thought is eager to ask
If, at last, all things will be well,
In the morning beyond the dark;
What secret the pale lips could tell
Of the sleeper silent and stark.
But there comes a murmur of trees,
That wave their glad branches, and bring
Blossoms and leaves, to shake in the breeze,
From miraculous spring to spring;
And they whisper that all is well,
For the same hand is guiding us all,
Whether 'tis felt in man's death-knell,
Or in autumn leaves as they fall.
And so many have gone before,
That the voice of another sphere
Floats oft from o'er a sable shore,
And pierces the shadow of fear.
O heart that forever is still,
Thou wilt ache with trouble no more,
Nor know of the good or the ill
Of a lunatic world's uproar!
Nor care for the great or the small
Of a strange, bewildering life,
That oft seems dust and ashes all,
And is mostly a vapid strife!
For the end is the peace of grass,
And the spirit, ever to be:
One for us to feel as we pass,
The other encompassing thee.
Clouds sail, and the bright waters flow,
And our spirits must journey on;
But it cannot be ill to go
The way upon which thou hast gone.