Death is nothing at all

I have only slipped away into the next room

I am I, and you are you

Whatever we were to each other

That we are still

Call me by my old familiar name

Speak to me in the easy way which you always used

Put no difference in your tone,

Wear no forced air of soleminity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed

At the little jokes we enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was

Let it be spoken without effect

Without the ghost of a shadow in it
Life means all that it ever meant

It is the same as it ever was

There is unbroken continuity

What is death but a negligible accident

Why should I be out of mind

Because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you, for an interval

Somewhere very near

Just around the corner

All is well

Nothing is past;nothing is lost

One brief moment and all will be as it was before

How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

Henry Scott Holland
( 1847-1918),canon of St. Paul's Cathedral, London.

www.poeticexpressions.co.uk