Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — Auf Wiedersehen

Until we meet again! That is the meaning Of the familiar words, that men repeat        &nbsp At parting in the street. Ah yes, till then! but when death intervening Rends us asunder, with what ceaseless pain        &nbsp We wait for the Again! The friends who leave us do not feel the sorrow Of parting, as we feel it, who must stay        &nbsp Lamenting day by day, And knowing, when we wake upon the morrow, We shall not find in its accustomed place        &nbsp The one beloved face. It were a double grief, if the departed, Being released from earth, should still retain        &nbsp A sense of earthly pain; It were a double grief, if the true-hearted, Who loved us here, should on the farther shore        &nbsp Remember us no more. Believing, in the midst of our afflictions, That death is a beginning, not an end,        &nbsp We cry to them, and send Farewells, that better might be called predictions, Being fore-shadowings of the future, thrown        &nbsp Into the vast Unknown. Faith overleaps the confines of our reason, And if by faith, as in old times was said,        &nbsp Women received their dead Raised up to life, then only for a season Our partings are, nor shall we wait in vain        &nbsp Until we meet again!