AFTER THE FEAST.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 411, 25 February 1881, Page 11

AFTER THE FEAST.

BY BMILY HUXTINGTON MILLER. The bells chime softly in the gloom ; The guests are gone ; the fire is low ; I wait within the echoing room To greet mine own before I go. Mine own for whom, beside the board, To-day no empty chair was set ; For whom the silent pledge was poured While trembling tears the eyelids wet. No foot-fall echoes on the stair, No shadow fall across the light, No whisper fills the happy air With the lost music of delight, Yet all my restless thoughts are stilled, And, waiting by the hearth alone, My longing heart is warmed and filled With the dear presence of its own. Beloved faces, faintly set In halos of my tenderest thought, Immortal eyes, whose radiance yet With yearning human love is fraught, Dear lips, whose kisses, sweet and slow, Drop, like a balm, on mortal pain, Dear hands whose every touch I know, Yet may not hope to clasp again. I know not to what clearer height, In that sweet heaven, their thought has growa. Or what new fountain of delight, Untasted here, their souls have known ; But since through changing years I keep Their precious memory green and fair, I cannot deem that love can sleep, Or cease its terder vigils there. O unforgetting souls, that swell The swift, exulting host above, Where face to face with Him ye dwell Whose endless years are endless love. To-night, by some celestial air, The cloudy curtain wide is blown : Guests of my heart, but grown more fair, I see you, greet you, claim mine own ! — Christian Union.