On the Way to the Funeral of a Dear Friend

Death—
the final triumph,
the glad bursting into radiant glory,
the beginning of the great endlessness

for which the life we have here—
or so we call it—is only a dim reflection,
an off-stage rehearsal,
without lights, costumes, or set,

the afternoon before the Eternal Play begins,
never to leave off.

I mean not that the life we have here is not beautiful—
far from it!—
but that the life we know is only the prologue

to the things that shall come after.

No one attends a play for the prologue,
or reads a book for the introduction.
They go and read for what follows.

Why should we shrink from death?
Life is but the foreword, incomplete,
senseless,
without it.
If the prologue is so glorious,
why would we wish to flee the tale of which the prologue speaks?
The prologue exists for the play:
the play is not some freakish, tragic accident that by chance succeeds it,
the play is the event.

And the nervousness we feel between the prologue and the play,
when the lights are out and the curtains drawn,
is but the nervousness of the height of anticipation,
the last moment of uncertainty before

the longed-for joy shines forth fulfilled.