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| 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 marvelous story | |
| Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory, | 5 |
| Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer? | |
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| 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, | 10 |
| By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered | |
| Alone in the desert at night? | |
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| The Angels of Wind and of Fire | |
| Chant only one hymn, and expire | |
| With the song’s irresistible stress; | 15 |
| Expire in their rapture and wonder, | |
| As harp-strings are broken asunder | |
| By music they throb to express. | |
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| But serene in the rapturous throng, | |
| Unmoved by the rush of the song, | 20 |
| With eyes unimpassioned and slow, | |
| Among the dead angels, the deathless | |
| Sandalphon stands listening breathless | |
| To sounds that ascend from below;— | |
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| From the spirits on earth that adore, | 25 |
| From the souls that entreat and implore | |
| In the fervor and passion of prayer; | |
| From the hearts that are broken with losses, | |
| And weary with dragging the crosses | |
| Too heavy for mortals to bear. | 30 |
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| And he gathers the prayers as he stands, | |
| And they change into flowers in his hands, | |
| Into garlands of purple and red; | |
| And beneath the great arch of the portal, | |
| Through the streets of the City Immortal | 35 |
| Is wafted the fragrance they shed. | |
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| It is but a legend, I know— | |
| A fable, a phantom, a show, | |
| Of the ancient Rabbinical lore; | |
| Yet the old mediæval tradition, | 40 |
| The beautiful strange superstition, | |
| But haunts me and holds me the more. | |
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| When I look from my window at night, | |
| And the welkin above is all white, | |
| All throbbing and panting with stars, | 45 |
| Among them majestic is standing | |
| Sandalphon, the angel, expanding | |
| His pinions in nebulous bars. | |
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| And the legend, I feel, is a part | |
| Of the hunger and thirst of the heart; | 50 |
| The frenzy and fire of the brain, | |
| That grasps at the fruitage forbidden, | |
| The golden pomegranates of Eden, | |
| To quiet its fever and pain. | |
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