“We Are So Few!”

The long, blest chain is broken—

So many links have softly dropped from sight;

So many names are now in sadness spoken—

Names once so bright.

“We are so few!”

We count them on our fingers.

One, two, a half dozen left to cheer;

And then in faltering tones our converse lingers

On those, as dear.

“We are so few!”

And kisses seem more holy,

And partings touch the soul to deeper woe;

Stern hearts grow gentle; pride becometh lowly,

When we say so!

“We are so few!”

And eyes seek signs of failing;

Age groweth dark when years take one by one!

Death fills the air.  A sense of dull bewailing

Blots out the sun.

But hark!  It seems to us an angel speaketh;

“We are so many!”  Aye, so many, there!

A dawn upon the grey horizon breaketh—

A day most fair.

We count them!  Not by fingers, but by heart-beats,

By thrills of joy and hope, by wings of faith!

The chain is drawn together—softly parts—meets—

This is not death!

They keep our places for us.  Some day gladly

Shall fall on us God’s fresh, immortal dew;

In heaven we nevermore can murmur sadly,

“We are so few!”

Cora Linn Daniels[1]

---

[1] Cora Linn Morrison Daniels was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1852. She was educated in the grammar school of Malden in that state. She studied under a private tutor for two years, and then went to Delacove Institute, near Philadelphia. She returned to her home state and finished her education at Dean Academy in Franklin, and upon graduating married Joseph H. Daniels of that town. Cora published her first poem in 1874, then went to work as a newspaper writer at the Golden Rule in Boston. Next she became the New York correspondent for the Hartford, Connecticut Daily Times, with a special emphasis on dramatic and literary criticism. 

Cora seems to have had a fascination for the mystical; her first novel, Sardia (1891) featured a heroine delivered from the influence of a female vampire. She published articles in The Metaphysical Magazine. Her favorite work, What Is to Be (1893) was subtitled Psychical Philosophy. In 1903, she and C. M. Stevens published the Encyclopedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World. She was a member of the American Folklore Society, and a founding member of the Theosophical Society.  (Source: Who’s Who in America (1903-05)