Excerpts from Resignation

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The air is full of farewells to the dying,

And mournings for the dead;

The heart of Rachel, for her children crying

Will not be comforted!


Let us be patient! These severe afflictions

Not from the ground arise,

But oftentimes celestial benedictions

Assume this dark disguise.


We see dimly through the mists and vapors;

Amid these earthly damps

What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers

May be heaven’s distant lamps.


There is no Death! What seems so is transition;

This life of mortal breadth

Is but a suburb of the life elysian,

Whose portal we call Death


In that great cloister’s stillness and seclusion,

By guardian angels led,

Safe from temptation, safe from sin’s pollution,

She lives, whom we call dead.


There is no Death! What seems so is transition;

This life of mortal breadth

Is but a suburb of the life elysian,

Whose portal we call Death.

Text arranged by the composer