Читать книгу Best Loved Hymns and Readings - Martin Manser - Страница 37

Henry Scott Holland was an English clergyman who served as Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral in the years 1884-1911. Although he also published sermons, various books on faith and a biography of Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, it is for this simple message of comfort to the bereaved that he is usually remembered. It is sometimes encountered in slightly altered form to include the lines ‘Let my name be ever the household word that it always was, Let it be spoken without an effort, Without the ghost of a shadow upon it.’

Death is nothing at all,

I have only slipped away into the next room.

I am I, and you are you,

Whatever we were to each other, that we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name,

Speak to me in the easy way which you always used.

Put no difference in your tone,

Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed

together.

Let my name be ever the household word that it always was,

Let it be spoken without effect,

Without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant

It is the same as it ever was.

There is unbroken continuity.

Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you,

For an interval,

Somewhere very near,

Just around the corner

All is Well.

Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918)