HE is not here! the Buried One has risen,
He gave His life to take it up again:
Death could not keep Him bound in its dark prison,
An empty cave but shows where He has lain.
O faithless heart! O eyes with weeping red!—
Why seek the Living One among the dead?
He is not here! behold the grave-clothes lying,
The folded napkin laid with care aside;
No rifled tomb—its seals and guard defying,
He rose a Conqueror as He had died,
Crushing earth’s powers in dust beneath His tread,
The Living One no more among the dead.
He is not here! O loving ones but faithless,
What means that grief o’er-burdening the breast?
The grave has left His frame unclogg’d and scathless,
‘Twas but a couch whereon a while to rest—
The night soon pass’d, morn dawn’d around His bed,
The Living One awak’d Him from the dead.
He is not here! O weary souls that wander
‘Mong earth’s dead things to seek a living Lord,
Lift up your languid eyes, He dwelleth yonder,
Within the skies the Saviour adored—
Sin hath your wearied footsteps far misled
To seek a Living One among the dead.
He is not here! not dead but living ever,
His people’s life, the first fruits of the grave:
To Him by faith united nought can sever
The Son of God from those He came to save—
The living members of the living Head
Shall rise, like Him, in triumph from the dead.
—From “The Christian Treasury,” 1880.