AN ANGEL with a radiant face, | |
| Above a cradle bent to look, | |
| Seemed his own image there to trace, | |
| As in the waters of a brook. | |
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| “Dear child! who me resemblest so,” | 5 |
| It whispered, “come, oh come with me! | |
| Happy together let us go, | |
| The earth unworthy is of thee! | |
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| “Here none to perfect bliss attain; | |
| The soul in pleasure suffering lies; | 10 |
| Joy hath an undertone of pain, | |
| And even the happiest hours their sighs. | |
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| “Fear doth at every portal knock; | |
| Never a day serene and pure | |
| From the o’ershadowing tempest’s shock | 15 |
| Hath made the morrow’s dawn secure. | |
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| “What, then, shall sorrows and shall fears | |
| Come to disturb so pure a brow? | |
| And with the bitterness of tears | |
| These eyes of azure troubled grow? | 20 |
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| “Ah no! into the fields of space, | |
| Away shalt thou escape with me; | |
| And Providence will grant thee grace | |
| Of all the days that were to be. | |
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| “Let no one in thy dwelling cower, | 25 |
| In sombre vestments draped and veiled; | |
| But let them welcome thy last hour, | |
| As thy first moments once they hailed. | |
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| “Without a cloud be there each brow; | |
| There let the grave no shadow cast; | 30 |
| When one is pure as thou art now, | |
| The fairest day is still the last.” | |
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| And waving wide his wings of white, | |
| The angel, at these words, had sped | |
| Towards the eternal realms of light!— | 35 |
| Poor mother! see, thy son is dead! | |
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