They say you are gone, O lad of mine,
Killed in action, the message read.
Of what avail is our faith to us now,
Since the one we loved is dead?
But what is death? And what is Love?
'Twas told us in days of yore
By the prophet who lived and healed and taught
On that far Galilean shore.
For God is Love, and Love is God,
And God is the Life of all;
In Him we move and breathe and live,
Where no shadow of death can fall.
You gave the body of flesh, O lad,
For a cause both righteous and just;
But the child of the Spirit still lives on
As he has and always must.
And so our mourning is turned into joy.
To our lad there has come no change
But the turning away from a mortal dream
To the light of a higher range.
