I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls
The burial-ground God’s-Acre! It is just;
It consecrates each grave within its walls,
And breathes a benison o’er the sleeping dust.
God’s-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts
Comfort to those, who in the grave have sown
The seed that they had garnered in their hearts,
Their bread of life, alas! no more their own.
Into its furrows shall we all be cast,
In the sure faith, that we shall rise again
At the great harvest, when the archangel’s blast
Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain.
Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom,
In the fair gardens of that second birth;
And each bright blossom mingle its perfume
With that of flowers, which never bloomed on earth.
With thy rude ploughahare, Death, turn up the sod,
And spread the furrow for the seed we sow;
This is the field and Acre of our God,
This is the place where human harvests grow!
This poem is one Longfellow’s many but is wonderfully portayed by his choice of words.
Truly it is seen that this man could see beyond the limits of mortal life and embrace by faith the life hereafter. He properly portrays the hope shared by Christians that those who are in Christ shall rise again, and that Death is to be outdone someday by Life.
His words are to comfort those who have laid their dead beneath the earth to see that ground from God’s perspective. 1 Corinthians 15:22 “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”