bright, those souls must tread
   The paths they fashioned year on year.
   For hells are built of hate or fear,
And heavens of love our lives have shed.

Across unatlassed worlds of space,
   And through God’s mighty universe,
   With thoughts that bless or thoughts that curse,
Each journeys to his rightful place.
   Oh, greater truth no man has said,
   “There is no death, there are no dead.”

It lifts the mourner from the sod,
   And bids him cast away the reed
   Of some uncomforting poor creed,
And walk with Knowledge for a rod.
It bids the doubter seek the broad
   Vast fields, where living facts will feed
   All those whose patience proves their need
Of these immortal truths of God.

It brings before the eyes of faith
   Those realms of radiance, tier on tier,
   Where our beloved “dead” appear,
More beautiful because of “death.”
   It speaks to grief: “Be comforted;
   There is no death, there are no dead.”

Realization.

HERS was a lonely, shadowed lot;
Or so the unperceiving thought,
Who looked no deeper than her face,
Devoid of chiseled lines of grace—
No farther than her humble grate,
And wondered how she bore her fate.

Yet she was neither lone nor sad;
So much of love her spirit had,
She found an ever-flowing spring
Of happiness in everything.

So near to her was Nature’s heart
It seemed a very living part
Of her own self; and bud and blade,
And heat and cold, and sun and shade,
And dawn and sunset, Spring and Fall,
Held raptures for her, one and all.

The year’s four changing seasons brought
To her own door what thousands sought
In wandering ways and did not find—
Diversion and content of mind.

She loved the tasks that filled each day—
Such menial duties; but her way
Of looking at them lent a grace
To things the world deemed commonplace.

Obscure and without place or name,
She gloried in another’s fame.
Poor, plain and humble in her dress,
She thrilled when beauty and success
And wealth passed by, on pleasure bent;
They made earth seem so opulent.
Yet none of quicker sympathy,
When need or sorrow came, than she.
And so she lived, and so she died.

She woke as from a dream.  How wide
And wonderful the avenue
That stretched to her astonished view!
And up the green ascending lawn
A palace caught the rays of dawn.
Then suddenly the silence stirred
With one clear keynote of a bird;
A thousand answered, till ere long
The air was quivering bits of song.
She rose and wandered forth in awe,
Amazed and moved by all she saw,
For, like so many souls who go
Away from earth, she did not know
The cord was severed.

                        Down the street,
With eager arms stretched forth to greet,
Came one she loved and mourned in youth;
Her mother followed; then the truth
Broke on her, golden wave on wave,
Of knowledge infinite.  The grave,
The body and the earthly sphere
Were gone!  Immortal life was here!
They led her through the Palace halls;
From gleaming mirrors on the walls
She saw herself, with radiant mien,
And robed in splendor