MORTALITY

by: Dinah Maria (Mulock) Craik (1826-1887)

      E dainty mosses, lichens grey,
      Pressed each to each in tender fold,
      And peacefully thus, day by day,
      Returning to their mould;
       
      Brown leaves, that with aerial grace
      Slip from your branch like birds a-wing,
      Each leaving in the appointed place
      Its bud of future spring;--
       
      If we, God's conscious creatures, knew
      But half your faith in our decay,
      We should not tremble as we do
      When summoned clay to clay.
       
      But with an equal patience sweet
      We should put off this mortal gear,
      In whatsoe'er new form is meet
      Content to reappear.
       
      Knowing each germ of life He gives
      Must have in Him its source and rise,
      Being that of His being lives
      May change, but never dies.
       
      Ye dead leaves, dropping soft and slow,
      Ye mosses green and lichens fair,
      Go to your graves, as I will go,
      For God is also there.

"Mortality" is reprinted from Poems. Dinah Maria Craik. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1866.

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