XVIII
Let it be so: More sweet it is to be
A listener of love's ephemeral song,
And live with beauty though it be not long,
And die enamoured of eternity,
Though in the apogee
Of time there sit no individual
Godhead of life, than to reject the plea
Of passionate beauty: loveliness is all,
And love is more divine than memory.
Azrael. [Robert Gilbert Welsh]
The angels in high places
Who minister to us,
Reflect God's smile, — their faces
Are luminous;
Save one, whose face is hidden,
(The Prophet saith),
The unwelcome, the unbidden,
Azrael, Angel of Death.
And yet that veiled face, I know
Is lit with pitying eyes,
Like those faint stars, the first to glow
Through cloudy winter skies.
That they may never tire,
Angels, by God's decree,
Bear wings of snow and fire, —
Passion and purity;
Save one, all unavailing,
(The Prophet saith),
His wings are gray and trailing,
Azrael, Angel of Death.
And yet the souls that Azrael brings
Across the dark and cold,
Look up beneath those folded wings,
And find them lined with gold.
The Flight. [Lloyd Mifflin]
Upon a cloud among the stars we stood.
The angel raised his hand and looked and said,
"Which world, of all yon starry myriad,
Shall we make wing to?" The still solitude
Became a harp whereon his voice and mood
Made spheral music round his haloed head.
I spake — for then I had not long been dead —
"Let me look round upon the vasts, and brood
A moment on these orbs ere I decide . . .
What is yon lower star that beauteous shines
And with soft splendour now incarnadines
Our wings? — THERE would I go and there abide."
Then he as one who some child's thought divines:
"That is the world where yesternight you died."
The Rival. [James Whitcomb Riley]
I so loved once, when Death came by I hid
Away my face,
And all my sweetheart's tresses she undid
To make my hiding-place.
The dread shade passed me thus unheeding; and
I turned me then
To calm my love — kiss down her shielding hand
And comfort her again.
And lo! she answered not: and she did sit
All fixedly,
With her fair face and the sweet smile of it,
In love with Death, not me.