Classic Poem

As we grow older, life grows more divine:
Slow word by word and tedious line by line
We learn the next world's lore.
Then all our hearts are changed, the temporal ends;
We bid farewell to old, we make new friends
Upon the eternal shore.

Wife, mother, brother, sister, father, these
Pass, like the passing of a summer breeze;
The soul is that which stays.
No local earthly frail relationship
Hallowed by grasp of hand or touch of lip
Defies the fleeting days.

Our personality grows wholly new, —
Differs from yesterday's as morning dew
From dew-drops now absorbed
Closer we cleave to God, and more apart
We live, it may be, from the human heart:
Our soul's sun shines full orbed.

So we pass onward, till we stand at last
With every struggle, each love, in the past;
Our soul surmounts its throne
Then the large deathless rapture through us thrills:
We turn from human hearts, from flowers and hills,
And meet God's eyes, alone.