Christian Poems of DEATH

(Various authors)

TWO LITTLE FEET

"Two little feet went pattering by - years ago. They wandered off to the sunny sky - years ago. They crept not back to the love they left, they climbed nevermore to the arms bereft - long ago.

"Again I shall hear those two little feet pattering by; their music a thousand times more sweet in the sky; I joy to think that the Father's care will hold them safe till I meet them there - by and by." --Anonymous

TITLE: "SEED CORN INTO GRAIN":

"We are too stupid about death. We will not learn how it is wages paid to those who earn; How it is the gift for which on earth we yearn -- To be set free from bondage to the flesh; how it is turning seed corn into grain, how it is wining Heaven's eternal gain, how it means freedom evermore from pain, how it untangles every mortal mesh.

We are so selfish about death. We count our grief far more than we consider their relief, when the great reaper gathers in the sheaf, no more to know the season's constant change; And we forget that it means only Life -- Life with all Joy, Peace and Rest and Glory rife, the Victory won, and ended all the strife, and Heaven no longer far away and strange!" --The Watchman Examiner (a 19th Century Christian magazine)

"Afraid? Of what? To feel the spirit's glad release? To pass from pain to perfect peace, the strife and strain of life to cease? Afraid of what? --- Afraid? Of what? Afraid to see the Saviour's face, to hear His welcome, and to trace the Glory-Gleam from wounds of Grace? Afraid of that??

Afraid? Of what? A flash - a crash - a pierced heart; darkness - light - O Heaven's art! A wound of His counterpart! Afraid of that? --- Afraid? Of what? To enter Heaven's Rest, and yet to serve the Master blest, from service good to service best? Afraid of that??

Afraid? Of what? To do by death what life could not -- Baptize with death a stony plot, till souls shall blossom from that spot? Afraid of that??" -- E.H. Hamilton

"Peace, perfect peace, with sorrows surging round? On Jesus' bosom nought but calm is found. -- Peace, perfect peace, our future all unknown? Jesus we know, and He is on the Throne!

"Peace, perfect peace, death shadowing us and ours? Jesus has vanquished death and all its powers. -- It is enough: earth's struggles soon shall cease, and Jesus call us to Heaven's perfect peace!" --E.H.Bickersteth

IN MEMORY

"What mean you by this weeping to break my very heart? We both are in Christ's keeping, and therefore cannot part.

"You there, I here, though parted, we still at heart are one; I only just in sunshine, the shadow scarcely gone.

"What though the clouds surround you, you can the brightness see, tis only a little way, that leads from you to me.

"I was so very weary, surely you would not mourn, that I a little sooner should lay my burden down.

"Then weep not, weep not, Darling, God wipes away all tears; tis only a little way, though you may call it years." --Anonymous

"Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, when I put out to sea;

"But such a tide as moving seems asleep, too full for sound and foam, when that which drew from out the boundless deep turns home again.

"Twighlight and evening bell, and after that the dark! and may there be no sadness of farewell, when I embark;

"For though from out our bourne of Time and Place the flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face when I have crossed the bar!" --Tennyson

"How well he fell asleep! Like some proud river, widening toward the sea;

"Calmly and grandly, silently and deep - life joined eternity!" --Samuel T. Coleridge

"If this were my last day I'm almost sure I'd spend it working in my garden. I would dig about my little plants, and try to make them happy, so they would endure long after me.

"Then I would hide secure where my green arbor shades me from the sky, and watch how bird and bee and butterfly came hovering to every flower lure.

"Then, as I rested, perhaps a friend or two, lovers of flowers would come, and we would walk about my little garden paths and talk of peaceful times when all the world seemed true.

"This may be my last day, for all I know; what a temptation to spend it so!" --Anne Higginson Spicer

"Thou knowest that through our tears of hasty, selfish weeping

"comes surer sin, and for our petty fears of loss Thou hast in keeping

"a greater gain than all of which we dreamed; Thou knowest that in grasping

"the bright possessions which so precious seemed we lose them; but if, clasping

"Thy faithful hand, we tread with steadfast feet the path of Thy appointing,

"there waits for us a treasury of sweet delight, royal anointing -

"with oil of gladness - and of strength." --Helen Hunt Jackson

(A STORY ABOUT DEATH)

'He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass.' Ps 72:6 "Amos speaks of the King's mowings. Our King has many scythes, and is perpetually mowing His lawns. The musical tinkle of the whetstone on the scythe portends the cutting down of myriads of green blades, daisies, and other flowers. Beautiful as they were in the morning, within an hour or two they lie in long, faded rows.

"Thus in human life we make a brave show, before the scythe of pain, the shears of disappointment, the sickle of death. There is no method of obtaining a velvety lawn but by repeated mowings; and there is no way of developing tenderness, evenness, sympathy, but by the passing of God's scythes.

"How constantly the Word of God compares man to grass, and his glory to its flower! But when grass is mown, and all the tender shoots are bleeding, and desolation reigns where flowers were bursting, it is the most acceptable time for showers of rain falling soft and warm.

"O soul, thou hast been mown! Time after time the King has come to thee with His sharp scythe. Do not dread the scythe -- it is sure to be followed by the shower!" --F.B. Meyer

(A STORY ABOUT DEATH)

"A few days before his death, Dr. F.B. Meyer (famed Deeper-life author) wrote a very dear friend these words: "I have just heard, to my great surprise, that I have but a few days to live. It may be that before this reaches you, I shall have entered the Palace. Don't trouble to write. We shall meet in the morning!"

(A STORY ABOUT DEATH)

"I had dropped in upon an old friend of my boyhood days. She was one of God's own saints. Rich in experience, she was ripe for the coming glory. She had gone so far in life's pilgrimage that her mind was slightly beclouded, and her memory affected.

As I rose to go home she arose also and said, "I want to go home."

"But mother," said her daughter, "you are home now." At that she looked a bit dazed. Then looking at me with a tender smile she said with a profound touch of pathos in her voice, "I want to go home before its dark."

"I opened the door and started homeward. The twilight sky was still aglow with the vanishing glory of the sunset. Beyond it lay the glory of the Father's House.

My soul was tingling with the spiritual message my dear friend's words had brought me. What an unspeakable blessing for God's children to reach Home before it gets dark!

Before the darkness of broken body and failing health; of dimmed senses and clouded faculties; of physical sufferings and infirmaties; of vanished faces, voices, and fellowships -- before all these come, how blessed it is to reach Home before it gets dark.

"Sometimes we deplore the passing of those of God's own who die young. The young girl in the bloom of her sweet maidenhood; the lad in the flush of his strong youth;

...how premature it seems, and what a grievous mistake. But, is it not we who are mistaken in this? They have only reached Home before it got dark.

They have entered the Homeland; they have found "a place to stay;" they are "forever with the Lord;" they see His face and walk in the unfailing splendor of His glory.

It is only because we look through tear-blinded eyes, "see through a glass darkly," and so fail to measure eternal values as God measures them, that we ever lament as premature the passing of the young into the Homeland.

The Father's House is thronged with children.

And we may be sure He made no mistake in taking them there. After all, when we enter into a Homeland whose time-units are centuries and ages, instead of seconds and minutes, then the mere human distinctions of age and years shall count as nought." -- James McConkey

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