The River of Death by Vesta N. Cudworth

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 11, 1866

The River of Death.

By Vesta N. Cudworth

AIR: “Bury me not in the deep, deep sea.”

The “mystic river” with wavelets cold, Is dashing still on a mortal shore; While far o’er the stream, ’mid sands of gold, It kisses the flowers that fade no more. Though many have sunk in the dashing tide, And we felt them glide from our powerless hand, Yet we know they’ll rise on the other side, And gather the flowers of that fadeless strand.

Oh hush thy murmurs! thou greedy wave, Thy depths are wreath’d with our choicest gems; Our mothers dear, ’mid tears we gave, From our household sands to thy chilling arms; They passed away, and were seen no more; But a vision of beauty we may not tell, We saw o’er the wave on the starry shore, As we looked by faith through the misty veil.

And when the soft winds of evening sigh, Bringing memories of other days, A whispered hymn on the breeze floats by; We list, and yearn for those solemn lays. Oh, a hollow world is this world of pain, When mothers pray by the couch no more; And our hearts can never be green again, ’T till we greet them safe on the other shore.

And gray-haired fathers, with cold, blanched cheek, Have calmly entered thy Lethean wave, A smile of joy to the dying lip, We bowed in grief, but we could not save. And darling sisters, with jetty curls, Bright stars of our circle, and brothers fair, And little ones too, with laughing eyes And golden locks, they are all, all there.

VESTA N. CUDWORTH. Springfield, Mass.