Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
I am I, 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 you always used to.
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 it always was,
let it be spoken without effort,
without the trace of a shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
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 round the corner.
All is well.
Henry Scott Holland
