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MORTALITY.
“And we shall be changed.”
- YE dainty mosses, lichens gray,
- Pressed each to each in tender fold,
- And peacefully thus, day by day,
- Returning to their mould;
- Brown leaves, that with aerial grace
- Slip from your branch like birds a‐wing,
- Each leaving in the appointed place
- Its bud of future spring;—
- If we, God’s conscious creatures, knew
- But half your faith in our decay,
- We should not tremble as we do
- When summoned clay to clay.
- But with an equal patience sweet
- We should put off this mortal gear,
- In whatsoe’er new form is meet
- Content to reappear.
- Knowing each germ of life He gives
- Must have in Him its source and rise,
- Being that of His being lives
- May change, but never dies.
- Ye dead leaves, dropping soft and slow,
- Ye mosses green and lichens fair,
- Go to your graves, as I will go,
- For God is also there.
