"Mine," saith the Lord, "these jewels bright and pearless.
Mine, in the day when I shall count mine own!"
So He has called them, and the hearts left cheerless
Sad and bereaved, must mourn the loved ones flown
"Mine," saith the Lord, He gave, and He has taken
In wisdom infinite He dealt the blow;
And round our hearth their places are forsaken
But _they_ are gathered to His fold, we know!
Home-gathered early, when the sun so brightly
In life's fair morning tinged their curls with gold,
And o'er their snowy brows all calm and lightly--
The joyous span of earth's brief time had roll'd.
Home-gathered early; fair to mortal seeming,
The promises that o'er their pathway hung,
But ah! we cannot e'en in fondest dreaming
Conceive their bliss amid the cherub throng.
Eye hath not seen, nor to man's heart is given,
To know what to His loved one He bestows
What joys untold the ransomed band in heaven,
Through the eternal, blissful ages knows.
And the bereavement is no hopeless sorrow,
No lasting parting, but an ending pain;
We feel that upward, toward the glad to-morrow
Are drawn these links of the earth-binding chain.
For well we know that these, our darlings, entered,
Into His joy, shall be at last restored
So while our hope in perfect faith is centred
We wait for resurrection in the Lord.