THE OLD QUESTION by SAMUEL VALENTINE COLE

AH! whither gone, my friend of many years?
I ask it of the silence, with the thought
Of what thou wert and what thy hands have wrought,
And only silence answers in my ears:
Whither the life that beautiful appears,
And true, with kindly ministrations fraught—
Thy life that, passing when we dreamed it not,
Has left us to our memories and our tears?
If fairer now the light that round thee streams,
Forget us not: thy steps we cannot trace;
And yet we wait, as if to catch some gleams
Of what lies yonder in that holy place,
So thin the impenetrable curtain seems
That separates the worlds and hides thy face.

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