Meeting Above

If yon bright stars which gem the night   Be each a blissful dwelling-sphere Where kindred spirits reunite   Whom death hath torn asunder here,— How sweet it were at once to die,   To leave this blighted orb afar! Mixt soul and soul to cleave the sky,   And soar away from star to star. But oh, how dark, how drear, how lone,   Would seem the brightest world of bliss, If, wandering through each radiant one,   We failed to meet the loved of this! If there no more the ties shall twine   Which death’s cold hand alone could sever, Ah, would those stars in mockery shine,   More joyless, as they shine forever! It cannot be,—each hope, each fear   That lights the eye or clouds the brow, Proclaims there is a happier sphere   Than this bleak world that holds us now. There, Lord, thy wayworn saints shall find   The bliss for which they longed before; And holiest sympathies shall bind   Thine own to thee forevermore. O Jesus, bring us to that rest,   Where all the ransomed shall be found, In thine eternal fulness blest,   While ages roll their cycles round.