"Where did they take him? Just run out and hail a cab, then wait for me.
Why, I would give a thousand coats, and pounds, for such a boy as he!"
A half-hour after this we stood together in the crowded wards,
And the nurse checked the hasty steps that fell too loudly on the boards.
I thought him smiling in his sleep, and scarce believed her when she said,
Smoothing away the tangled hair from brow and cheek, "The boy is dead."
Dead? dead so soon? How fair he looked! One streak of sunshine on his hair.
Poor lad! Well it is warm in Heaven: no need of "change" and jackets there.
And something rising in my throat made it so hard for me to speak,
I turned away, and left a tear lying upon his sunburned cheek.
Anon.
* * * * *
SANDALPHON.
Have you read in the Talmud of old,
In the Legends the Rabbins have told,
Of the limitless realms of the air,—
Have you read it,—the marvellous story
Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,
Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?
How erect, at the outermost gates
Of the City Celestial he waits,
With his feet on the ladder of light,
That, crowded with angels unnumbered,
By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered
Alone in the desert at night?
The Angels of Wind and of Fire
Chant only one hymn, and expire
With the song's irresistible stress;
Expire in their rapture and wonder,
As harp strings are broken asunder
By music they throb to express.
But serene in the rapturous throng,
Unmoved by the rush of the song,
With eyes unimpassioned and slow,
Among the dead angels, the deathless
Sandalphon stands listening breathless
To sounds that ascend from below;—