I grieve for life's bright promise, just shown and then withdrawn.

The stormy March has come at last, With winds and clouds and changing skies; I hear the rushing of the blast That through the snowy valley flies.

The February sunshine steeps your boughs and tints the buds and swells the leaves within.

I shall seeThe hour of death draw near to me,Hope, blossoming within my heart. . . .

The rose that lives its little hour Is prized beyone the sculpted flower.

Still sweet with blossoms is the year's fresh prime.

Christ taught an astonishing thing about physical death: not merely that it is an experience robbed of its terror but that as an experience it does not exist at all. To "sleep in Christ," like one that wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.