THERE is no flock, however watch'd and tended, But one dead lamb is there! There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, The air is full of farewells to the dying, The heart of Rachel, for her children crying, Let us be patient! These severe afflictions But oftentimes celestial benedictions We see but dimly through the mists and vapours Amid these earthly damps. What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers, May be heaven's distant lamps. There is no death! What seems so is transition. This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life elysian, She is not dead,--the child of our affection, But gone unto that school Where she no longer needs our poor protection, And Christ himself doth rule. In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion, Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, 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. Not as a child shall we again behold her; In our embraces we again enfold her, But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion, And beautiful with all the soul's expansion And though at times impetuous wild emotion, And anguish long suppress'd, The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean, That cannot be at rest, We will be patient, and assuage the feeling We may not wholly stay; By silence sanctifying, not concealing, The grief that must have way. OH, And leeze me on my rock and reel; Frae tap to tae that cleeds me bien, And haps me fiel and warm at e'en. I'll set me down and sing and spin, On ilka hand the burnies trot, On lofty aiks the cushats wail, Wi' sma' to sell, and less to buy, Oh, wha wad leave this humble state, Amid their cumbrous, dinsome joys, Burns. |