Winter the Nursery for Spring Flowers

Death wished to borrow something of thy grace;

And now that thou art lying 'neath the snow,

The grave that holds thee seems a favored place,

Where one might willing go.

But life is not so rich in things divine,

That it would part with such a soul as thine!

A voice of comfort breathes from sorrowing Earth;

If winter is the nursery of flowers,

If purity and loveliness have worth

Beyond this world of ours,

If there is pity for the tears we shed,

If any truly live—thou art not dead!  In Memoriam on the death of Helen Bell.