C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Elegy at the Grave of my Father

Translation of Charles Timothy Brooks

BLEST are they who slumber in the Lord;

Thou, too, O my father, thou art blest:

Angels came to crown thee; at their word,

Thou hast gone to share the heavenly rest.

Roaming through the boundless, starry sky,

What is now to thee this earthly clod?

At a glance ten thousand suns sweep by,

While thou gazest on the face of God.

In thy sight the eternal record lies;

Thou dost drink from life’s immortal wells;

Midnight’s mazy mist before thee flies,

And in heavenly day thy spirit dwells.

Yet beneath thy dazzling victor’s crown,

Thou dost send a father’s look to me;

At Jehovah’s throne thou fallest down,

And Jehovah, hearing, answereth thee.

Father, oh when life’s last drops are wasting,—

Those dear drops which God’s own urn hath given,—

When my soul the pangs of death is tasting,

To my dying bed come down from heaven!

Let thy cooling palm wave freshly o’er me,

Sinking to the dark and silent tomb;

Let the awful vales be bright before me,

Where the flowers of resurrection bloom.

Then with thine my soul shall soar through heaven,

With the same unfading glory blest;

For a home one star to us be given,—

In the Father’s bosom we shall rest.

Then bloom on, gay tufts of scented roses;

O’er his grave your sweetest fragrance shed!

And while here his sacred dust reposes,

Silence reign around his lowly bed!