The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 4.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

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[167] In love, let us trust, they were summoned so soon
     From the morning of life, while we toil through its noon;
They were frail like ourselves, they had needs like our own,
     And they rest as we rest in God's mercy alone.

Unchanged by our changes of spirit and frame,
     Past, now, and henceforward the Lord is the same;
Though we sink in the darkness, His arms break our fall,
     And in death as in life, He is Father of all!

We are older: our footsteps, so light in the play
     Of the far-away school-time, move slower to-day;—
Here a beard touched with frost, there a bald, shining crown,
     And beneath the cap's border gray mingles with brown.

But faith should be cheerful, and trust should be glad,
     And our follies and sins, not our years, make us sad.
Should the heart closer shut as the bonnet grows prim,
     And the face grow in length as the hat grows in brim?

Life is brief, duty grave; but, with rain-folded wings,
     Of yesterday's sunshine the grateful heart sings;