Auf Wiedersehen

Until we meet again! That is the meaning
Of the familiar words, that men repeat
&nbsp At parting in the street.
Ah yes, till then! but when death intervening
Rends us asunder, with what ceaseless pain
&nbsp We wait for the Again!

The friends who leave us do not feel the sorrow
Of parting, as we feel it, who must stay
&nbsp Lamenting day by day,
And knowing, when we wake upon the morrow,
We shall not find in its accustomed place
&nbsp The one beloved face.

It were a double grief, if the departed,
Being released from earth, should still retain
&nbsp A sense of earthly pain;
It were a double grief, if the true-hearted,
Who loved us here, should on the farther shore
&nbsp Remember us no more.

Believing, in the midst of our afflictions,
That death is a beginning, not an end,
&nbsp We cry to them, and send
Farewells, that better might be called predictions,
Being fore-shadowings of the future, thrown
&nbsp Into the vast Unknown.

Faith overleaps the confines of our reason,
And if by faith, as in old times was said,
&nbsp Women received their dead
Raised up to life, then only for a season
Our partings are, nor shall we wait in vain
&nbsp Until we meet again!