THE RETICENCE OF THE DEAD.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 8, 7 May 1920, Page 12

THE RETICENCE OF THE DEAD.

(By Ella Wheeler Wilcox.)

Al^iough I have been sweetly comforted Bjr messages that came to me from Space Ament the life of that transcendent place, Yet, when the utmost has been ,done and said, There is a strange reserve about the dead — A reticence whose cause I can but trace To our own lack of comprehending grace Osir failure to attain the paths they tread. Freed from both Time and Space, those beings live When speech needs but the vehicle of thought To iell all kmdred souls what they should know. But when we call, they come to us and give Some portions of those truths which we have sought, Then, sudden, wrapped in reticence, they go. II. Our atmosphere, our language— all is dense • To those unfettered souls in ether clad Our clumsy ways of speech to them sad. So long has grown their vision, so intense, So wide their knowledge of Death's re- : compense, They wonder why small proofs should make us glad, Forg'etting that vast sorrow we have had In loss of them — and in their reticence. 0 my dear dead ! You have been kind — so kind, Bringing to my poor broken heart the proof Of Life Eternal. Now show me the way To that high realm where thought is unconfined, And soul from soui no longer stands aloof. There is so much — so much for us to say !