Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AT THE BEAUTIFUL GATE, by EDWARD NOYES POMEROY


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AT THE BEAUTIFUL GATE, by                    
First Line: She stood at the beautiful gate of heaven
Last Line: But never to be divided more.
Subject(s): Angels; Death - Children; Graves; Heaven; Death - Babies; Tombs; Tombstones; Paradise


"I shall watch for you, papa."—Dying words of a child.

She stood at the beautiful gate of heaven
And scanned the throngs as they entered there.
Her face was serene as a soul just shriven,
And seraph-like were her features fair.

She had held her place while a score of summers
And winters on earth went slowly by;
She had searched the faces of countless comers,
But the face she looked for drew not nigh.

But she grew not aweary with her waiting;
She did not deem it a long delay.
It was not a place to quarrel with fate in,
And it was not time that passed away.

As they came, like carrier pigeons homing,
Her eyes at times grew misty and dim;
And she kept repeating, as they kept coming,
"I told papa I would watch for him."

She was not the only one there who waited;
There was many a face as grave and fair,
And many a heart with delight was sated,
For many were reunited there.

But at last her vigil was well rewarded,
For the form she sought before her stood,
And eyes that remembered her own regarded
Her own, and in all that multitude!

But how changed were both since the hour they parted,
When the home she loved was lost to sight,
Where those she left had been broken-hearted!
But that was darkness and this was light.

"And what did they do now?" you ask, as I did.
They left behind the beautiful door
And went on together, so long divided,
But never to be divided more.





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