Poem by Phoebe Cary

Entered into Rest

My friend, 0, my dearly beloved!
O, do you feel, do you know,
How the times and the seasons are going;
Are they weary and slow?

Does it seem to you long, in the heavens,
My true, tender mate,
Since here we were living together,
Where dying I wait.

‘Tis three years, as we count by the Spring-times,
By the birth of the flowers.
What are years, aye! eternities even,
To love such as ours?

Side by side are we still, though a shadow
Between us doth fall;
We are parted, and yet are not parted,
Not wholly, and all.

For still you are round and about me,
Almost in my reach,
Though I miss the old pleasant communion
Of smile, and of speech.

And I long to hear what you are seeing,
And what you have done,
Since the earth faded out from your vision,
And the heavens begun;

Since you dropped off the darkening fillet
Of clay from your sight,
And opened your eyes upon glory
Ineffably bright!

Though little my life has accomplished,
My poor hands have wrought;
I have lived what has seemed to be ages
In feeling and thought,

Since the time when our path grew so narrow,
So near the unknown,
That I turned back from following after,
And you went on alone.

For we speak of you cheerfully, always,
As journeying on:
Not as one who is dead do we name you:
We say, you are gone.

For how could we speak of you sadly,
We who watched while the grace
Of eternity’s wonderful beauty
Grew over your face!

Do we call the star lost that is hidden
In the great light of morn?
Or fashion a shroud for the young child
In the day it is born?

Yet, behold! this were wise to their folly
Who mourn, sore distressed,
When a soul that is summoned, believing;
Enters into its rest!

And for you, never any more sweetly
Went to rest, true and deep,
Since the first of our Lord’s blessed martyrs,
Having prayed, fell asleep!

1. The Three Wrens
2. Suppose
3. The Leak in the Dike
4. The Prairie on Fire
5. Ballad of the Canal

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