DEAREST, when from thy sight I’ve passed away, | |
| And from my glass has run out all the sand, | |
| When you no more shall see me day by day, | |
| Or feel the loving pressure of my hand, | |
| And I have gone into the shadowy land, | 5 |
| I ask for this,—you will not say me nay,— | |
| That memories of me be free from gloom, | |
| Oh, “think of me as in the other room!” | |
| |
| Sorrow not overmuch, nor greatly weep, | |
| Mourning because I am amongst the dead; | 10 |
| Rather believe I only am asleep, | |
| And dreaming sweetly on a painless bed, | |
| Where God has smoothed the pillow for my head | |
| And bright-winged angels watch around me keep. | |
| Oh, speak not of me in the silent tomb, | 15 |
| But “think of me as in the other room.” | |
| |
| “The other room”—the house is just the same; | |
| The chambers vary as regards the place— | |
| One lieth to the front, where all aflame | |
| The sky is glowing with the sun’s bright face; | 20 |
| The other, to the back, has dimmer grace, | |
| Set also in a smaller, meaner frame: | |
| But is not God in both, dear love? with Whom, | |
| “I pass from this into the other room.” | |
| |
| I know, belov’d, my loss will make you sad, | 25 |
| I know full well you cannot choose but grieve; | |
| But think of all the blessedness we’ve had. | |
| O home, more happy than I could conceive! | |
| O God, who in my lot such bliss did weave! | |
| O love, for twelve sweet years which made me glad! | 30 |
| Why should dark sorrow all your life consume | |
| When I but pass “into the other room”? | |
| |
| True, often in the gathering shades of night, | |
| When sitting by our dear hearth all alone, | |
| Your heart will ache, because you think the light, | 35 |
| The bloom, from off your life has passed and gone | |
| And left it joyless, colourless, and wan, | |
| Bereaved of all you say did make it bright. | |
| But let your mind its calm and peace resume, | |
| And “think of me as in the other room.” | 40 |
| |
| And when you feel aweary of the strife | |
| With sin and sorrow, falsehood, wrong and pain, | |
| Wishing for one who used to cheer your life, | |
| Whose joy it was to comfort and sustain, | |
| And help you bear the pressure and the strain, | 45 |
| Whose dearest thought is this—she is your wife, | |
| ’Twill touch with light the clouds that darkly loom, | |
| To “think of me as in the other room.” | |
| |
| And when a silence broods o’er stair and hall, | |
| Unbroken by a voice you loved to hear, | 50 |
| And when I answer not, although you call, | |
| Yet still believing I am very near, | |
| This one sweet thought will check the rising tear, | |
| And hold it on the cheek before it fall,— | |
| I may step any time from out the gloom, | 55 |
| Being so near you in “the other room.” | |
| |
| “The other room,” beloved, not far away, | |
| For though removed a little from your sight, | |
| I shall be ever near you, day by day, | |
| And when the evening darkens into night; | 60 |
| And surely it will be a strange delight, | |
| Which all my pain and grief will overpay, | |
| To know that through your life this hope shall bloom | |
| —We meet again within “the other room.” | |
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