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Two poems that may help


Leslie221

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by Henry Scott Holland 1847-1918

Canon of St Paul's Cathedral

Death is nothing at all

Death is nothing at all.

I have only slipped away into the next room.

I am I and you are you,

Whatever we were to each other, that we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name,

Speak to me in the easy way which you always used.

Put no difference in your tone,

wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow,

laugh as we always laughed

at the little jokes we enjoyed together.

Pray smile, think of me, pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word

that it always was.

Let it be spoken without effort,

without the trace of a shadow in it.

Life means all that it ever meant,

it is the same as it ever was.

There is unbroken continuity,

why should I be out of mind

because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you

somewhere very near

just around the corner.

All is well

by Henry Van Dyke 1852 - 1933

Parable of Immortality

I am standing by the seashore.

A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze

and starts for the blue ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength,

and I stand and watch until at last she hangs like a peck of white cloud

just where the sun and sky come down to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says :

- 'There she goes!

Gone where?

Gone from my sight - that is all.

She is just as large in mast and hull and spar

as she was when she left my side

and just as able to bear her load of living freight

to the places of destination.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says:

- 'There she goes! ',

there are other eyes watching her coming,

and other voices ready to take up the glad shout :

- 'Here she comes!'

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Thank you Leslie, My Mom loved the Poem Parable of Immortality and wanted it read at her funeral service which it was and now almost 10 yrs after her death it still means ALOT to me. Sometimes a reminder that she's still with me is just what I need. Thanks again.

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