Poems (Kimball)/In Memoriam

by Harriet McEwen Kimball

For works with similar titles, see In Memoriam.

IN MEMORIAM.

(A. B. M. entered into rest, Oct. 8, 1883.)

I WATCH them passing to and fro,
 A little band of maidens fair;
I count each sweet familiar face,
 But one I look for is not there.

How strange it seems her face to miss
 With bloom of youth and health aglow:
So strong, so glad her hold on life,
 Who would have dreamed she first would go?

Amidst this group of happy girls
 Her bright, responsive, buoyant ways
Winged every task, and seemed to add
 New sunshine to the sunniest days.

Thus sped the gay, unconscious hours,
 Yet oft within the sacred fane
Their voices mingled in the chant,
 And it was hers that led the strain.

And in her wanderings ere she died
 She dreamed herself in church once more,
And said Our Father and the Creed,
 Then sang the Gloria o'er and o'er.

Sweeter than fabled song of bird
 That drifting with the tide expires,
Those failing notes her watchers heard—
 The hymn of God's celestial choirs.

So singing down the tide of time
 Death came to her in sweet disguise,
And so her bright young soul passed on
 Melodious into Paradise.

Still in the one Communion vast,
 The Church at rest beyond the veil,
She sings with you, O little band,
 The Glorias that shall never fail.