The Book of the Future Life

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E. Stock, 1900

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Page 131 - Life ! we've been long together Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'Tis hard. to part when friends are dear — Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear; — Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time; Say not Good Night, — but in some brighter clime Bid me Good Morning.
Page 101 - Day after day we think what she is doing In those bright realms of air; Year after year, her tender steps pursuing, Behold her grown more fair. Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken The bond which nature gives, Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken, May reach her where she lives.
Page 18 - Some kinder casuists are pleased to say In nameless print — that I have no devotion ; But set those persons down with me to pray, And you shall see who has the properest notion Of getting into heaven the shortest way : My altars are the mountains and the ocean, Earth, air, stars — all that springs from the great Whole, Who hath produced, and will receive the soul.
Page 71 - But the Nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet loud music out of her little instrumental throat, that it might make mankind to think miracles are not ceased.
Page 177 - Ah! when at last we lie with tranced breath, Not vexing Thee in death, And Thou rememberest of what toys We made our joys, How weakly understood Thy great commanded good, Then, fatherly not less Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay, Thou'lt leave Thy wrath, and say, 'I will be sorry for their childishness.
Page 217 - Peace, peace ! he is not dead, he doth not sleep ! He hath awakened from the dream of life. Tis we who, lost in stormy visions, keep With phantoms an unprofitable strife, And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife Invulnerable nothings. We decay Like corpses in a charnel ; fear and grief Convulse us and consume us day by day, And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.
Page 172 - Alas ! alas ! Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once; And He that might the vantage best have took, Found out the remedy: How would you be, If he, which is the top of judgment, should But judge you as you are? O, think on that; And mercy then will breathe within your lips, Like man new made.
Page 191 - Give me my scallop-shell of quiet, My staff of faith to walk upon. My scrip of joy, immortal diet, My bottle of salvation, My gown of glory, hope's true gage; And thus I'll take my pilgrimage. Blood must be my body's balmer; No other balm will there be given; Whilst my soul, like quiet palmer, Travelleth towards the land of heaven...
Page 28 - It must be so — Plato, thou reason'st well ! — Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality ? Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror, Of falling into nought ? why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction ? 'Tis the divinity that stirs within us ; 'Tis heaven itself, that points out an hereafter, And intimates eternity to man.
Page 68 - With antique pillars massy proof, And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light. There let the pealing organ blow, To the full-voiced quire below, In service high and anthems clear, As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstasies, And bring all Heaven before mine eyes.

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