CHILDREN.

Come to me,

0
ye

children! For I hear you at your play, And the questions that perplexed me

Have vanished quite away.

Ye open the eastern windows,

That look towards the sun,

Where thoughts are singing swallows

And the brooks of morning run.

In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,

In your thoughts the brooklet's flow, But in mine is the wind of Autumn

And the first fall of the snow.

Ah! what would the world be to us

If the children were no more?

We should dread the desert behind us

Worse than the dark before.

What the leaves are to the forest,

With light and air for food, Ere their sweet and tender juices

Have been hardened into wood,

That to the world are children;

1

Through them it feels the glow Of a brighter and sunnier climate

Than reaches the trunks below.

Come to me,

O
ye

children! And whisper in my ear What the birds and the winds are singing

In your sunny atmosphere.

For what are all our contrivings,

And the wisdom of our books, When compared with your caresses,

And the gladness of your looks ?

Ye are better than all the ballads

That ever were sung or said ; For ye are living poems,

And all the rest are dead.

1

SANDALPHON.

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 marvellous story Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,

Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer ?

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,
By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered

Alone in the desert at night?

The Angels of Wind and of Fire
Chaunt only one hymn, and expire

With the song's irresistible stress;
Expire in their rapture and wonder,
As harp-strings are broken asunder

By music they throb to express.

But serene in the rapturous throng,
Unmoved by the rush of the song,

With eyes unimpassioned and slow,
Among the dead angels, the deathless
Sandalphon stands listening breathless

To sounds that ascend from below;

From the spirits on earth that adore,
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.