ANEMONE
Within the woods,
Whose young and half transparent leaves scarce cast
A shade, gray circles of anemones
Danced on their stalks.
Thy subtle charm is strangely given,
My fancy will not let thee be,—
Then poise not thus 'twixt earth and heaven,
O white anemone!
Anemone, so well
Named of the wind, to which thou art all free.
From the soft wing of vernal breezes shed,
Anemones, auritulas, enriched
With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves.
ANGELS
As the moths around a taper,
As the bees around a rose,
As the gnats around a vapour,
So the spirits group and close
Round about a holy childhood, as if drinking its repose.
But sad as angels for the good man's sin,
Weep to record, and blush to give it in.
What though my winged hours of bliss have been
Like angel visits, few and far between.
Hold the fleet angel fast until he bless thee.
When one that holds communion with the skies
Has fill'd his urn where these pure waters rise,
And once more mingles with us meaner things,
'Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings.
What is the question now placed before society with the glib assurance which to me is most astonishing? That question is this: Is man an ape or an angel? I, my lord, I am on the side of the angels. I repudiate with indignation and abhorrence those new fangled theories.
In merest prudence men should teach
* * * * * *
That science ranks as monstrous things
Two pairs of upper limbs; so wings—
E'en Angel's wings!—are fictions.
Let old Timotheus yield the prize
Or both divide the crown;
He rais'd a mortal to the skies
She drew an angel down.
Non Angli, sed Angeli.
Not Angles, but Angels.
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
Unbless'd thy hand!—if in this low disguise
Wander, perhaps, some inmate of the skies.
But all God's angels come to us disguised:
Sorrow and sickness, poverty and death,
One after other lift their frowning masks,
And we behold the Seraph's face beneath,
All radiant with the glory and the calm
Of having looked upon the front of God.
In this Him world of clouding cares,
We rarely know, till 'wildered eyes
See white wings lessening up the skies,
The Angels with us unawares.
How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of silence through the empty-vaulted night,
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness till it smiled!
The helmed Cherubim,
And sworded Seraphim,
Are seen in glittering ranks with wings display'd.
As far as angel's ken.
For God will deign
To visit oft the dwellings of just men
Delighted, and with frequent intercourse
Thither will send his winged messengers
On errants of supernal grace.
Then too when angel voices sung
The mercy of their God, and strung
Their harps to hail, with welcome sweet,
That moment watched for by all eyes.
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
A guardian angel o'er his life presiding,
Doubling bis pleasures, and his cares dividing.
