This Spiritualism is the nepenthe which the ancient philosophers sought, to prolong life for ever; you cast off your bodies like an old garment. The pathway of this new science is as clear to the spirit as the names of the constellations are to the astronomer. In the great realm of the spirit there is no room for death to abide ; he has gone out with the ignorance, and blindness, and prejudice of the past, and life, only life, remains as your inheritance.

Mrs. Tappan then paused. After a moment’s silence she delivered the following inspirational poem:—

O beautiful white mother Death,
Thou silent and shadowy soul,
Thou mystical, magical soul,
How soothing and cooling thy breath!
Ere the morning stars sang in their spheres,
Thou didst dwell in the spirit of things,
Brooding there with thy wonderful wings,
Incubating the germs of the years.
Coeval with Time and with Space,
Thy sisters are Silence and Sleep ;
Three sisters—Death, Silence, and Sleep,
How strange and how still is thy face!
In the marriage of matter to soul,”
Thou wert wedded to young fiery Time,
The now weary and hoary-haired Time,
With him thou hast shared earth’s control.
O beautiful spirit of Death,
Thy brothers are Winter and Night;
Stern Winter and shadowy Night,
They bear thy still image and breath.
Summer buds fall asleep in thy arms,
’Neath the fleecy and soft-footed snow,
The silent, pure, beautiful snow;
And the earth their new life-being warms.
All the world is endowed with thy breath,
Summer splendours and purple of wine
Flow out of this magic of thine,
O beautiful angel of Death
What wonders in silence we see
The lily grows pale in thy sight;
The rose thro’ the long summer night
Sighs its life out in fragrance to thee.
O beautiful angel of Death,
The beloved are thine, all are thine !
They have drunk the nepenthe divine,
They have felt the full flow of thy breath.
Out into thy realm they are gone,
Like the incense that greeteth the morn,
On the wings of thy might they’re up-borne,
As bright birds to thy Paradise flown.
They are folded and safe in thy sight,
Thro’ thy portals they pass from earth’s prison;
From the cold clod of clay they have risen,
To dwell in thy temple of light.
O beautiful Angel of Life,
Germs feel thee and burst into bloom,
Souls see thee and rise from the tomb,
With beauty and loveliness rife.
On earth thou art named cold Death,
Dim, dark, dismal, dire, dreadful Death,
In heaven thou art “Angel of Life.”
We are one with thy spirit, O Death ;
We spring to thy arms unafraid,
One with thee are our glad spirits made.
We are born when we drink thy cold breath,—
Oh, Angel of Life, lovely Death.

 

The concluding hymn was then sung, after which Mrs. Tappan uttered the following benediction—“ May the peace of the loving spirit of the Heavenly Father and His angels abide with you, and the life that knows no death bear you on to the immortal world.”

The Spiritualist, Oct. 15, 1873
Poem by Cora L.V. Richmond

The lily grows pale in thy sight; the rose, through the long summer night, sighs its life out in fragrance to thee.