Dear dead! they have become
Like guardian angels to us;
And distant Heaven like home,
Through them begins to woo us;
Love that was earthly, wings
Its flight to holier places;
The dead are sacred things
That multiply our graces.
They whom we loved on earth
Attract us now to Heaven;
Who shared our grief and mirth
Back to us now are given.
They move with noiseless foot
Gravely and sweetly round us,
And their soft touch hath cut
Full many a chain that bound us.
O dearest dead! to Heaven
With grudging sighs we gave you;
To Him--be doubts forgiven!
Who took you there to save you:--
Now get us grace to love
Your memories yet more kindly,
Pine for our homes above
And trust to God more blindly.
THE HOLY SOULS.
WRITTEN FOR MUSIC BY THE AUTHOR OF "CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS AND SCHOLARS."
O Mary, help of sorrowing hearts,
Look down with pitying eye
Where souls the spouses of thy Son,
In fiery torments lie;
Far from the presence of their Lord
The purging debt they pay,
In prisons through whose gloomy shades
There shines no cheering ray.
The fire of love is in their hearts,
Its flame burns fierce and keen;
They languish for His Blessed Face,
For one brief moment seen;
Prisoners of hope, their joy is there
To wait His Holy Will,
And, patient in the cleansing flames,
Their penance to fulfil.
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