THE TWO ANGELS.

Two Angels, one of Life, and one of Death,
Passed o'er the village as the morning broke;

The dawn was on their faces; and beneath,

The sombre houses capped with plumes of smoke.

Their attitude and aspect were the same;

Alike their features and their robes of white; And one was crowned with amaranth, as with flame, And one with asphodels, like flakes of light.

I saw them pause on their celestial way :-
Then said I, with deep fear and doubt oppressed,
"Beat not so loud, my heart, lest thou betray
The place where thy beloved are at rest!”

And he who wore the crown of asphodels,
Descending at my door, began to knock :
And my soul sank within me, as in wells

The waters sink before an earthquake's shock.

I recognised the nameless agony

The terror, and the tremor, and the pain

That oft before had filled and haunted me,

And now returned with threefold strength again.

The door I opened to my heavenly guest,

And listened, for I thought I heard God's voice;

And, knowing whatsoc'er He sent was best,

Dared neither to lament nor to rejoice.

THE TWO ANGELS.

Then with a smile that filled the house with light—
"My errand is not Death, but Life," he said;
And, ere I answered, passing out of sight,

On his celestial embassy he sped.

'Twas at thy door, O friend, and not at mine,
The angel with the amaranthine wreath,
Pausing, descended; and, with voice divine,
Whispered a word that had a sound like Death.

Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom-
A shadow on those features fair and thin;
And softly, from that hushed and darkened room,
Two angels issued, where but one went in.

All is of God! If He but wave his hand,

The mists collect, the rains fall thick and loud;
Till, with a smile of light on sea and land,

Lo! He looks back from the departing cloud.

Angels of Life and Death alike are His;

Without His leave they pass no threshold o'er;
Who, then, would wish or dare, believing this,

Against His messengers to shut the door?

333

Inspired by the birth of a child to the writer, and the death of Mrs. Maria Lowell, the wife of another American poet, on the same day, at Cambridge, U.S.

PROMETHEUS,

OR THE POET'S FORETHOUGHT.

OF Prometheus, how undaunted

On Olympus' shining bastions His audacious foot he planted, Myths are told and songs are chaunted, Full of promptings and suggestions.

Beautiful is the tradition

Of that flight through heavenly portals, The old classic superstition

Of the theft and the transmission

Of the fire of the Immortals!

First the deed of noble daring,
Born of heavenward aspiration,
Then the fire with mortals sharing,
Then the vulture,-the despairing
Cry of pain on crags Caucasian.

All is but a symbol painted

Of the Poet, Prophet, Seer;
Only those are crowned and sainted
Who with grief have been acquainted,
Making nations nobler, freer.

PROMETHEUS.

In their feverish exultations,

In their triumph and their yearning, In their passionate pulsations,

In their words among the nations,

The Promethean fire is burning.

Shall it, then, be unavailing,

All this toil for human culture? Through the cloud-rack, dark and trailing, Must they see above them sailing

O'er life's barren crags the vulture?

Such a fate as this was Dante's,
By defeat and exile maddened;
Thus were Milton and Cervantes,
Nature's priests and Corybantes,

By affliction touched and saddened.

But the glories so transcendent

That around their memories cluster, And, on all their steps attendant, Make their darkened lives resplendent With such gleams of inward lustre !

All the melodies mysterious,

Through the dreary darkness chaunted;

Thoughts in attitudes imperious,

Voices soft, and deep, and serious,

Words that whispered, songs that haunted!

All the soul in rapt suspension,
All the quivering, palpitating
Chords of life in utmost tension,
With the fervor of invention,

With the rapture of creating!

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