free-verse36 lines
Death
by Abram Joseph RyanOut of the shadows of sadness,
Into the sunshine of gladness,
Into the light of the blest;
Out of a land very dreary,
Out of a world very weary,
Into the rapture of rest.
Out of to-day's sin and sorrow,
Into a blissful to-morrow,
Into a day without gloom;
Out of a land filled with sighing,
Land of the dead and the dying,
Into a land without tomb.
Out of a life of commotion,
Tempest-swept oft as the ocean,
Dark with the wrecks drifting o'er;
Into a land calm and quiet,
Never a storm cometh nigh it,
Never a wreck on its shore.
Out of a land in whose bowers
Perish and fade all the flowers:
Out of the land of decay,
Into the Eden where fairest
Of flowerets, and sweetest and rarest,
Never shall wither away.
Out of the world of the wailing
Thronged with the anguished and ailing;
Out of the world of the sad,
Into the world that rejoices --
World of bright visions and voices --
Into the world of the glad.
Out of a life ever mournful,
Out of a land very lornful,
Where in bleak exile we roam,
Into a joy-land above us,
Where there's a Father to love us --
Into our home -- "Sweet Home".