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