One Gone Before Poem by Martin Farquhar Tupper

I.
My pretty one beneath the sod,
My pretty one beyond the sky,
My darling gone to be with God,
And nevermore to moan or die,-
My Alice! fast asleep in flowers
Beneath the shadow of the Cross,
How blest is such a loss as ours
When thou art gainer by that loss!

II.
Beside the now deserted nave
Of dear old ivied Albury Church
Beside our own ancestral grave,
Beside the desecrated porch,-
Our pretty darling lies beneath
Her matted quilt of flow'rets fair,
And at her head, as blessing death,
The cross of Jesus watches there.

III.
Sweet spirit, pure and meek and mild
O patient martyr gone to bliss,
I love thee, my most precious child,
Too deeply to repine at this:
I long indeed to see those eyes,
And kiss their beauty o'er and o'er,
But lo! I see thee in the skies,
And there shall kiss them evermore.