Be Not Dismayed

Be not dismayed, be not dismayed when death     Sets its white seal upon some worshipped face.     Poor human nature for a little space     Must suffer anguish, when that last drawn breath     Leaves such long silence; but let not thy faith          Fail for a moment in God's boundless grace.          But know, oh know, He has prepared a place     Fairer for our dear dead than worlds beneath,     Yet not beneath; for those entrancing spheres          Surround our earth as seas a barren isle.     Ours is the region of eternal fears;          Theirs is the region where God's radiant smile     Shines outward from the centre, and gives hope     Even to those who in the shadows grope.     They are not far from us.    At first though long          And lone may seem the paths that intervene,          If ever on the staff of prayer we lean     The silence will grow eloquent with song     And our weak faith with certitude wax strong.          Intense, yet tranquil; fervent, yet serene,          He must be who would contact World Unseen     And comrade with their Amaranthine throng;     Not through the tossing waves of surging grief          Come spirit-ships to port.    When storms subside,     Then with their precious cargoes of relief          Into the harbour of the heart they glide.     For him who will believe and trust and wait     Death's austere silence grows articulate.