IN MEMORIAM.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 1, Issue 145, 28 August 1880, Page 3

IN MEMORIAM.

■ T [The following lines were written by Bishop Selwyn, when on his last voyage from England. They commemorate the death of a child of a fellow-passenger—-aged two years and seven months, — who died on the passage. The boy died on the 6th July, 1879, and an infant sister died next day. The poem was written by the Bishop between the deaths :—] “ Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand ?”—lsaiah 40, 12. Say not when yesterday you gave Your child to sleep beneath the wave, That could it He beneath the sod, ‘Twould nearer seem to you, and God. Within the hollow of His hand Our God doth hold both sea and land, And in that hand our loved ones He, Where’er they live, where’er they die. Perchance you’ve seen the noontide ray Pierce sparkling through the dashing spray. And marked how, far as eye could sound, Still shone that ray in depth profound. E’en so, methinks, the eye of God Pierces the grave, or sea, or sod, And if within His love they rest, Whe’er they sleep, our dead are blest. Nor think that lonely ’tis to He Where the wild waves make lullaby. Where nothing can attest your care, '• Your father’s love, your mother’s prayer. Rather in ocean’s vastness see A token of its unity, For thus you’ll find your infant’s grave Whene’er your feet its waters lave. And holier still—that deep abyss, Impenetrable—fathomless, Than mountain rill will shallower prove Tried by the Ocean of God’s love. July Bth, 1879.