With silence only as their benediction
God's angels come,
Where, in the shadow of a great affliction,
The soul sits dumb.
Yet would we say, what every heart approveth,
Our Father's will,
Calling to him the dear ones whom he loveth,
Is mercy still.
Not upon us or ours the solemn angel
Hath evil wrought;
The funeral anthem is a glad evangel--
The good die not!
God calls our loved ones, but we lose not wholly
What he has given;
They live on earth in thought and deed as truly
As in his heaven.
--John Greenleaf Whittier.