Oh, heaven is nearer than mortals think,
When they look with trembling dread,
At the misty future that stretches on,
From the silent home of the dead.
The eye that shuts in a dying hour,
Will open the next in bliss,
The welcome will sound in the heavenly world
Ere the farewell is hushed in this.
We pass from the clasp of mourning friends,
To the arms of the loved and the lost;
And those smiling faces will greet us there,
Which on earth we have valued most.
Yet oft in the hours of holy thought,
To the thirsting soul is given,
That power to pierce through the mist of sense,
To the beauteous scenes of heaven.
I know when the silver cord is loosed,
When the veil is rent away,
Not long and dark shall the passage be,
To the real of endless day.
