Poems (Hoffman)/The Revealing

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4567697Poems — The RevealingMartha Lavinia Hoffman

THE REVEALING.

How do we know how we love each other,
We who are never for long apart;
Daughter and son or sister and brother,
Husband and wife or father and mother,
Under the same roof, heart to heart?

Sometimes there cometh a sad revealing,
O, his terrible, terrible name is—Death;
Who enters the household softly stealing,
And puts out the tapers of thought and feeling
With one chill blast of his icy breath!

Comes he to test our loves and prove them,
Loves half forgotten in life's pursuit?
O but we learn how much we love them
When the cold grave clods lie dark above them,
With their bright eyes closed and the sweet lips mute!