There was among the chosen of the earth
A woman beautiful and young and fair;
So sweet and chaste, and breathing love and worth,
She stood the loveliest of the angels there.
And then from out the band about the throne,
With eager eyes and outstretched hands, there came
The forms of two. Each once had been her own,
And she on earth of each had borne the name.
(Oh, heaven being love, why should not love be thine,
And heart to heart strayed souls again unite,
And wife to husband there for aye entwine
Their spirit tendrils where is no blight?)
And each had been her husband; and each spoke
Her name and claimed her with fond eyes
And beckoning hands, till from her dream she woke
And gazed. Then spake a Voice kind-toned and wise:
“Choose you between them who your mate shall be;
For heaven were not heaven if it were to lose
The other half of self, the ecstasy
Of loving and of being loved—so choose.”
The woman raised her down-cast eyes, and o’er
The gathered host of spirits swept her gaze.
Twice had her heart gone out in love before;
Twice had she felt its warm, eternal rays.
Wild, sweet and tender to her memory came
Her first love’s recollections, like the start
Of mighty breakers. Then the steady flame
Uprising from her second smote her heart.
With pleading eyes, the two stayed on her choice,
Each thinking one must win and one must lose.
And then she spake, uplifting her sweet voice,
And said in tender tones: “And must I choose?”
“Yea, verily,” the Voice replied. “Be free
To follow where your heart points out the way.
For love, once kindled, fills eternity;
’Tis heaven, not earth, that lights his brightest ray.”
And then the woman, with fond beaming eye,
Spake up and said: “These two are both N. G.
They made me tired. I think I’ll try
That nice blond angel by that apple tree.”