Youth in Heaven

Not for them the length’ning shadows
  Falling coldly round our lives,
Nearer, nearer through the ages
  Life’s new spring for them arrives.

Not for them the doubt and anguish
  Of an old and loveless age,
Dropping sadly tears of sorrow
  On life’s faded, blotted page.

Not for them the mournful dimming
  Of the weary, tear-stained eye,
That has seen the sad procession
  Of its dearest hopes go by.

Not for them the hopeless clinging
  To life’s worn and feeble strands,
Till the last has ceased to tremble
  In our agèd, withered hands.

Never lines of light and darkness
  Thread the brows forever fair,
And the eldest of the angels
  Seems the youngest brother there.

There the stream of life doth never
  Cross the mournful plains of death,
And the pearly gates are ever
  Closed against his icy breath.