C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Gerald Massey

And thou hast stolen a jewel, Death!

Shall light thy dark up like a star.

A beacon kindling from afar

Our light of love and fainting faith.

Cling closer, closer, life to life,

Cling closer, heart to heart;

The time will come, my own wed Wife,

When you and I must part!

Let nothing break our band but Death,

For in the world above

’Tis the breaker Death that soldereth

Our ring of Wedded Love.

In this dim world of clouding cares,

We rarely know, till ’wildered eyes

See white wings lessening up the skies,

The angels with us unawares.

Our dearest hopes in pangs are born,

The kingliest Kings are crown’d with thorn.

Set is the sun of my years;

And over a few poor ashes,

I sit in my darkness and tears.

She thought our good-night kiss was given,

And like a lily her life did close;

Angels uncurtain’d that repose,

And the next waking dawn’d in heaven.

You scarce could think so small a thing

Could leave a loss so large;

Her little light such shadow fling

From dawn to sunset’s marge.

In other springs our life may be

In bannered bloom unfurled,

But never, never match our wee

White Rose of all the world.

A face like nestling luxury of flowers.

A heaven of dreams in her large lotus eyes, darkly divine.

A sweet new blossom of humanity, fresh fallen from God’s own home to flower on earth.

The breathing miracle into silence passed!

The heart is like an instrument whose strings steal nobler music from life’s many frets.

There is no dearth of kindness in this world of ours; only in our blindness we gather thorns for flowers.