SONGS
of the
Land of Sunset
[No. 47]
"Our Mother!" [1859]
["Not Dead, But Gone Before!"]
Duette.
Words by Charles Henry Webb
Music by J[oseph]. P[hilbrick]. Webster [1819-1875]

Chicago, IL: H. M. HIGGINS, 117 Randolph St.
Pearson [engravor]
[Source: @Newberry Livrary, Chicago]

H. M. HIGGINS Esqr.
  Dear Sir:
    I send you, as requested, the verses:— “Not dead, but gone 
before!”  I will state the incident that caused them to be 
written,
    On the evening of the funeral of the late Mrs. S    ,  of 
Ohio, all the family were gathered around her grave; three 
daughters placing flowers on the raised sod, while the father, 
leaning against a tree, standing near, exclaimed to the weeping 
children— “Weep not, she is not dead;— only gone before!”

1. We weep, yet tears, should have no place—
  Our mother did not die;
The angels sigh’d for her embrace
  And took her to tthe sky.
Earth has one loving spirit less,
  And heaven one angel more;
Oh! write this of the name we bless:
  “Not dead, but gone before.”

2. The shroud, the pall, the gloomy state,
  Were all a deft device;
The grave was but an em’rald gate
  That led to Paradise.
And now our mother’s loving hand
  Waves from the golden shore—
She calls us to the better land,
  Where she has “gone before.”

3. She whispers, “Lo, a loved one waits,
  My children weep the while;—”
The angel of the pearly gates
  Will yield to mother’s smile,
And hope the portals of the prayer
  Her loved ones to restore—
They have a mother pleading there;
  “Not dead, but gone before.”

4. And oft, while woodlawn’s roses wave,
  Their incense to the air,
We kneel above our mother’s grave,
  And breathe this simple prayer:—
“Oh! leave our children not alone
  But leave us as of yore,
And guide our footsteps by thy Home,
  Sweet mother gone before.”