| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
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| Teach Us to Die |
| | | Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1815–81) |
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| WHERE shall we learn to die? | |
| Go, gaze with steadfast eye | |
| On dark Gethsemane | |
| Or darker Calvary, | |
| Where through each lingering hour | 5 |
| The Lord of grace and power, | |
| Most lowly and most high, | |
| Has taught the Christian how to die. | |
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| When in the olive shade | |
| His long last prayer he pray’d, | 10 |
| When on the cross to heaven | |
| His parting spirit was given, | |
| He show’d that to fulfil | |
| The Father’s gracious will, | |
| Not asking how or why, | 15 |
| Alone prepares the soul to die. | |
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| No word of anxious strife, | |
| No anxious cry for life; | |
| By scoff and torture torn, | |
| He speaks not scorn for scorn; | 20 |
| Calmly forgiving those | |
| Who deem themselves his foes, | |
| In silent majesty | |
| He points the way at peace to die. | |
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| Delighting to the last | 25 |
| In memories of the past; | |
| Glad at the parting meal | |
| In lowly tasks to kneel; | |
| Still yearning to the end | |
| For mother and for friend; | 30 |
| His great humility | |
| Loves in such acts of love to die. | |
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| Beyond his depth of woes | |
| A wider thought arose, | |
| Along his path of gloom, | 35 |
| Thought for his country’s doom; | |
| Athwart all pain and grief, | |
| Thought for the contrite thief: | |
| The far-stretch’d sympathy | |
| Lives on when all beside shall die. | 40 |
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| Bereft, but not alone, | |
| The world is still his own; | |
| The realm of deathless truth | |
| Still breathes immortal youth; | |
| Sure, though in shuddering dread, | 45 |
| That all is finished, | |
| With purpose fix’d and high | |
| The friend of all mankind must die. | |
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| Oh, by those weary hours | |
| Of slowly-ebbing powers; | 50 |
| By those deep lessons heard | |
| In each expiring word; | |
| By that unfailing love | |
| Lifting the soul above, | |
| When our last end is nigh, | 55 |
| So teach us, Lord, with thee to die. | |
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