THE TWO ANGELS
Once Youth and Innocence, side by side,
With flaming swords at a garden gate
Stood forth in silence, to watch and wait,
Lest lust and evil their might defied.
Love's rarest fruits in that garden grew,
And lo! a Pilgrim of pain and sin
Grown tired, would gladly have entered in,
And washed his soul in the gleaming dew.
He looked at Youth, and the Angel said: