Those we
love truly never die
Though
year by year the sad memorial wreath--
A ring
and flowers, types of life and death--
Are laid
upon their graves.
Well blessed
is she who has a dear one dead
A friend
she has whose face will never change,
A dear
communion that will not grow strange.
The anchor
of a life is death.
There is
no death, nor change, nor any ending.
Only a
journey, and so many go
That we
who stay at length discern the blending
Of the
two roads, two breaths, two lives, and so
Come to
the high and quiet knowledge that the dead
Are but
ourselves, made beautiful instead.
From,
"Readings on the Philosophy of Death"
Author
Unknown, from "Poetry For Verse Speaking Choir"
Arranged
by, Helen D. Williams