Our Precious Graves by Bolton

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 18, 1864

Our Precious Graves.

By Bolton

THERE are many readers of the Review, to whom the following beautiful lines will touchingly apply.

Our precious graves! Those islands midst the long grass-waves! Those mossy mounds kept moist by tears! Those white stones whispering names and years!

How dear the soil, Once dug by common laborer's toil, But now the hallowed beds, though hard, Of saintly forms which angels guard!

We laid them there, With bleeding hearts and tenderest care, With words of hope, and prayers of pain, Which spoke of meeting them again.

And though the clay Was heaped upon them, on that day, Yet still they seem within our reach, Within our love, within our speech.

And oft we go, When summer sunsets flame and glow, Or when the snow upon them lies, Like glistening raiment from the skies,

And there we muse, Of what they were; and that glad news Which Jesus brought us, when he said, "I will restore your darling dead."

And then we smile, To think how, "in a little while," That sod will heave, and from it burst A blossom fairer than the first.

So, precious graves, Faith your dark floor with diamonds paves; Heaven through your grated bars we see, And Jesus holds and brings your key.—Bolton.