Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume IV. The Higher Life. 1904. | | | | VII. Death: Immortality: Heaven | | The Undiscovered Country | | Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833–1908) |
| | | COULD we but know | |
| The land that ends our dark, uncertain travel, | |
| Where lie those happier hills and meadows low; | |
| Ah! if beyond the spirit’s inmost cavil | |
| Aught of that country could we surely know, | 5 |
| Who would not go? | |
| |
| Might we but hear | |
| The hovering angels’ high imagined chorus, | |
| Or catch, betimes, with wakeful eyes and clear | |
| One radiant vista of the realm before us,— | 10 |
| With one rapt moment given to see and hear, | |
| Ah, who would fear? | |
| |
| Were we quite sure | |
| To find the peerless friend who left us lonely, | |
| Or there, by some celestial stream as pure, | 15 |
| To gaze in eyes that here were lovelit only,— | |
| This weary mortal coil, were we quite sure, | |
| Who would endure? | | | | |
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