There is no death! What seems so is transition; This life of mortal breath is but a suburb of the life elysian, Whose portal we call death.

She is not dead—the child of our affection; But gone unto that school Where she no longer needs our poor protection, And Christ himself doth rule.

In that great future, she may see us plain, We may not understand, but she can give us names; Perhaps we’ll join her in our purest aim, Where love eternal needs no time, nor strain.

Would that my heart could find an echo,
In that vast and silent world so far, A bell that rings—we hear it goes forever, And lose it in the continues of the sea.

There is no death! What seems so is transition; And the soul, unchained, is more alive, Than all who dwell this fleeting earth, In the heavens, with the flowers shall revive.

• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow