Who Shall Go First? by De Witt Clinton Smith

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 4, 1914

"Who Shall Go First?"

By De Witt Clinton Smith

DE WITT CLINTON SMITH

Who shall go first to the shadowy land, My Love or I? Whose will it be in grief to stand And press the cold, unanswering hand, Wipe from the brow the dew of death, And catch the softly fluttering breath, Breathe the loved name nor hear reply, In anguish watch the glaring eye: Hers or mine?

Which shall bend over the wounded sod, My Love or I? Commending the precious soul to God, Till the doleful fall of the muffled clod Startles the mind to a consciousness Of its bitter anguish and life distress, Dropping the pall o'er the love-lit past, With a mournful murmur, "The last, the last;" My Love or I?

Who shall return to the desolate home, My Love or I? And list for the step that shall never come, And hark for a voice that must still be dumb, While the half-stunned senses wander back To the cheerless life and thorny track; Where the silent room and the vacant chair Have memories sweet and hard to bear; My Love or I?

Ah! then, perchance to that mourner there, Wrestling with anguish and deep despair, An angel shall come through the gates of prayer, And the burning eyes shall cease to weep, And the sobs melt down in a sea of sleep, While fancy, freed from the chains of day, Through the shadowy dreamland floats away; My Love or I?

And then, methinks on that boundary land, My Love and I! Where the mourned and the mourner together shall stand, And walk by those rivers of shining sand; The dreamer awakened at dawn of day, Found the stone of the sepulcher rolled away— Over the cold, dull waste of death, With firm, bright sunlight of holy faith, My Love and I!

Puyallup, Wash.