Classic Poem

How cold would be the tomb,
How desolate its gloom,
Were there no faithful tears to fall above!
Oh, who could bear to die,
Did not we know some sigh
Will move fond spirits in memorial love?

The gentle Jesus wept
Above his friend, who slept
Where sister-hands had laid him; and His tear
Has hallowed every grief,
And yielded sweet relief,
And spread hope's brightest radiance round the bier.

The story told to-night
Of Adah , brave and bright,
And Ruth and Esther , gone to deathless home,
Proves how for love we burn,
And how our spirits yearn
To have some flower-wreaths laid upon our tomb.

There's little here below
But misery and woe;
But in yon realm there waits us an abode
“Of many mansions” framed,
The L ODGE E TERNAL named,
Its Master Builder, and its Master—G OD !

This sweet, sad story, fraught
With grand and noble thought,
Points us unerring to that Lodge afar;
It guides the wandering eye,
As when, in days gone by,
Wise men were guided by the E ASTERN S TAR .

So let us read the tale,
And con its its lessons well,
That we lose not the victory they won;
But laboring in faith,
Inherit after death,
Eternal honor and the heavenly Crown.