O, Can I Be Happy In Heaven? Poem by Martha Lavinia Hoffman

O, can I be happy in Heaven,
Though free from earth's trouble and care;
Though glories undreamed of be given,
If one whom I love is not there?
Could I walk the bright streets in my gladness,
Secure from all darkness and doubt;
And feel not a shadow of sadness
For one lost in midnight without?

O, could I be happy in Heaven?
Could the joys of that beautiful place,
Soothe to calmness my soul, anguish-riven
O'er the memory of one absent face?
And to know that forever and ever,
My pleadings and prayers are too late;
That to find them and save them I never
May pass through the beautiful gate!

O, should I be happy in Heaven,
If one whom I love is not there?
Would not the bright heritage given
Be a burden too dreadful to bear?
The crown and the harp, and the mansion
In that sunlight that never shall set;
Will the soul in its glorious expansion,
Thrilled with rapture, its sorrow forget?

O, would I be happy in Heaven
I ask? Could that other world's bliss
Make up to the soul that has striven
For the hopes that are blighted in this?
Could we walk by the beautiful river,
Could we tread the bright pavements of gold;
Forgetting, forgetting forever
The friends and affections of old?

O, shall we be happy in Heaven,
When the tears are all wiped from our eyes?
Will our hearts never ache- anguish-riven-
For a soul that eternally dies?
If one thing could soothe the sad spirit,
'Twere His love, who before us hath trod;
Could we think of one loved one and bear it,
Shut out from the presence of God?

O, this is so little of living,
And that is so endlessly more;
Shall the strongest of ties Time is weaving
Be rent at the portal before?
To one, endless happiness given,
To one, an eternal despair;
O, can we be happy in Heaven,
If one whom we love is not there?

O Thou, who in agony's garden,
Wept teardrops of sorrow and blood;
Who paid on the cross for our pardon,
Redeemed us from sin unto God,
May one priceless answer be given
The longing that burdens my prayer;
That when I am with Thee in Heaven,
All, all whom I love may be there!