| |
| DEAR and great angel, wouldst thou only leave | |
| That child, when thou hast done with him, for me! | |
| Let me sit all the day here, that when eve | |
| Shall find performed thy special ministry | |
| And time come for departure, thou, suspending | 5 |
| Thy flight, mayst see another child for tending, | |
| Another still, to quiet and retrieve. | |
| |
| Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more, | |
| From where thou standest now, to where I gaze, | |
| And suddenly my head be covered o’er | 10 |
| With those wings, white above the child who prays | |
| Now on that tomb,—and I shall feel thee guarding | |
| Me, out of all the world; for me discarding | |
| Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door! | |
| |
| I would not look up thither past thy head | 15 |
| Because the door opes, like that child, I know, | |
| For I should have thy gracious face instead, | |
| Thou bird of God! and wilt thou bend me low | |
| Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together, | |
| And lift them up to pray, and gently tether | 20 |
| Me, as thy lamb there, with thy garment’s spread? | |
| |
| If this was ever granted, I would rest | |
| My head beneath thine, while thy healing hands | |
| Close-covered both my eyes beside thy breast, | |
| Pressing the brain, which too much thought expands, | 25 |
| Back to its proper size again, and smoothing | |
| Distortion down till every nerve had soothing, | |
| And all lay quiet, happy, and supprest. | |
| |
| How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired! | |
| I think how I should view the earth and skies | 30 |
| And sea, when once again my brow was bared | |
| After thy healing, with such different eyes. | |
| O world, as God has made it! all is beauty: | |
| And knowing this, is love, and love is duty. | |
| What further may be sought for or declared? | 35 |
| |
| Guercino drew this angel I saw teach | |
| (Alfred, dear friend)—that little child to pray, | |
| Holding the little hands up, each to each | |
| Pressed gently,—with his own head turned away | |
| Over the earth where so much lay before him | 40 |
| Of work to do, though heaven was opening o’er him, | |
| And he was left at Fano by the beach. | |
| |
| We were at Fano, and three times we went | |
| To sit and see him in his chapel there, | |
| And drink his beauty to our soul’s content,— | 45 |
| My angel with me too; and since I care | |
| For dear Guercino’s fame (to which in power | |
| And glory comes this picture for a dower, | |
| Fraught with a pathos so magnificent), | |
| |
| And since he did not work so earnestly | 50 |
| At all times, and has else endured some wrong, | |
| I took one thought his picture struck from me, | |
| And spread it out, translating it to song. | |
| My Love is here. Where are you, dear old friend? | |
| How rolls the Wairoa at your world’s far end? | 55 |
| This is Ancona, yonder is the sea. | |
| |
