FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS. WHEN the hours of Day are numbered, Ere the evening lamps are lighted, Then the forms of the departed The beloved, the true-hearted, Come to visit me once more; He, the young and strong, who cherished By the road-side fell and perished, They, the holy ones and weakly, And with them the Being Beauteous, Who unto my youth was given, More than all things else to love me, And is now a saint in heaven. With a slow and noiseless footstep And she sits and gazes at me Uttered not, yet comprehended, O, though oft depressed and lonely, If I but remember only Such as these have lived and died! SPAKE full well, in language quaint and olden, Stars they are, wherein we read our history, Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery, Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous, Bright and glorious is that revelation, In these stars of earth,-these golden flowers. And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing, Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part Of the self-same, universal being, Which is throbbing in his brain and heart. Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining, Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues, Large desires, with most uncertain issues, These in flowers and men are more than seeming; Workings are they of the self-same powers, Which the Poet, in no idle dreaming, Seeth in himself and in the flowers. FLOWERS. Everywhere about us are they glowing, Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born; Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflowing, Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn; Not alone in Spring's armorial bearing, Not alone in meadows and green alleys, On the mountain-top, and by the brink Not alone in her vast dome of glory, In the cottage of the rudest peasant, In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers, Speaking of the Past unto the Present, Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers; In all places, then, and in all seasons, Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings, Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons, How akin they are to human things. And with childlike, credulous affection |