Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
By John Keble (1792–1866)The Burial of the Dead
| THE DEEP knell dying down, the mourners pause, | |
| Waiting their Saviour’s welcome at the gate; | |
| Sure with the words of Heaven | |
| Thy Spirit met us there, | |
| And sought with us along the accustom’d way | 5 |
| The hallow’d porch, and entering in beheld | |
| The pageant of sad joy | |
| So dear to Faith and Hope. | |
| O hadst thou brought a strain from Paradise | |
| To cheer us, happy soul, thou hadst not touched | 10 |
| The sacred springs of grief | |
| More tenderly and true, | |
| Than those deep-warbled anthems, high and low, | |
| Low as the grave, high as th’ Eternal Throne; | |
| Guiding through light and gloom | 15 |
| Our mourning fancies wild, | |
| Till gently, like soft golden clouds at eve | |
| Around the western twilight, all subside | |
| Into a placid faith, | |
| That even with beaming eye | 20 |
| Counts thy sad honours, coffin, bier, and pall, | |
| (So many relics of a frail love lost), | |
| So many tokens dear | |
| Of endless love begun. | |