A poem was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1881, dedicated to the memory of his friend James T. Fields, titled "Auf Wiedersehen" (meaning "until we meet again").
The poem contained a referenced to the Bible account of Jesus raising the dead, and Heaven being a place where we will see our friends again forever:
"Until we meet again! That is the meaning
Of the familiar words, that men repeat
At parting in the street.
Ah yes, till then! but when death intervening
Rends us asunder, with what ceaseless pain
We wait for the Again! ...
Believing, in the midst of our afflictions,
That death is a beginning, not an end,
We cry to them, and send
Farewells, that better might be called predictions,
Being fore-shadowings of the future, thrown
Into the vast Unknown.
Faith overleaps the confines of our reason,
And if by faith, as in old times was said,
Women received their dead
Raised up to life, then only for a season
Our partings are, nor shall we wait in vain
Until we meet again!
James T. Fields was born DECEMBER 31, 1817.
His father was a sea captain and died before Fields was three.
James T. Fields became the editor of The Atlantic Monthly, 1862-1870, where he became friends with the most notable writers of his day, including:
- William Wordsworth,
- William Makepeace Thackeray,
- Charles Dickens,
- Nathaniel Hawthorne,
- Herman Melville,
- Ralph Waldo Emerson,
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and
- James Russell Lowell.
The Atlantic Monthly published many notable works, including:
Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic"; works of Mark Twain;
and later, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s response to pacifist clergy who argued preachers should not get involved in politics.
King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" referred to Christian and Jewish thinkers such as St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Paul Tillich and Martin Buber.
[This information is from American Minute with Bill Federer with permission.]American Minute with Bill Federer American Minute with Bill Federer
The poem contained a referenced to the Bible account of Jesus raising the dead, and Heaven being a place where we will see our friends again forever:
"Until we meet again! That is the meaning
Of the familiar words, that men repeat
At parting in the street.
Ah yes, till then! but when death intervening
Rends us asunder, with what ceaseless pain
We wait for the Again! ...
Believing, in the midst of our afflictions,
That death is a beginning, not an end,
We cry to them, and send
Farewells, that better might be called predictions,
Being fore-shadowings of the future, thrown
Into the vast Unknown.
Faith overleaps the confines of our reason,
And if by faith, as in old times was said,
Women received their dead
Raised up to life, then only for a season
Our partings are, nor shall we wait in vain
Until we meet again!
James T. Fields was born DECEMBER 31, 1817.
His father was a sea captain and died before Fields was three.
James T. Fields became the editor of The Atlantic Monthly, 1862-1870, where he became friends with the most notable writers of his day, including:
- William Wordsworth,
- William Makepeace Thackeray,
- Charles Dickens,
- Nathaniel Hawthorne,
- Herman Melville,
- Ralph Waldo Emerson,
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and
- James Russell Lowell.
The Atlantic Monthly published many notable works, including:
Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic"; works of Mark Twain;
and later, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s response to pacifist clergy who argued preachers should not get involved in politics.
King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" referred to Christian and Jewish thinkers such as St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Paul Tillich and Martin Buber.
[This information is from American Minute with Bill Federer with permission.]American Minute with Bill Federer American Minute with Bill Federer