Poems (Piatt)/Volume 1/The Last Angel

by Sarah Piatt

THE LAST ANGEL. A STORY TOLD OF CORREGGIO.

The monks had shut his picture in, and,—yearning
 For one more last look, one, and yet one more,—
Heavily laden, with the hollows burning
 In his dusk cheek, he left the convent door.

Through the South sun he wandered homeward, moaning:
 "His Christ for silver gave the Jew of old;
Have I not sinned like him beyond atoning?
 My Christ for copper I to-day have sold."

Alone he walked, afraid to meet the faces
 He loved the most on earth—Ah, bitter fate!
His beautiful starving children, with hot traces
 Of tears on cheeks, were crowded at the gate.

But one, the youngest, spent with innocent weeping
 Touched by the weird moon with a tender beam,
Among the shadows in the straw lay sleeping,
 Forgetting all, and laughing at her dream.

Her father looked at her and lifted slowly
 His dying hand: "Give me my brush," he said.
When his Last Angel, radiant and holy,
 Looked at him with his child's eyes, he was dead.