ABOU BEN ADHEM AND THE ANGEL.
ABOU BEN ADHEM (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel, writing in a book of gold:
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold;
And to the presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?" The vision raised his head,
And, with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spake more low,
But cheerily still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men."
The angel wrote and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.
DEATH is a road our dearest friends have gone;
Why, with such leaders, fear to say "LEAD ON?"
Its gate repels, lest it too soon be tried;
But turns in balm on the immortal side.
Mothers have passed it; fathers; children; men,
Whose like we look not to behold again;
Women, that smiled away their loving breath :—
Soft is the travelling on the road of Death!
But Guilt has passed it? Men not fit to die!
Oh, hush — for He that made us all, is by !
Human were all; all men; all born of mothers;
All our own selves, in the worn shape of others;
Our used and oh! be sure, not to be ill-used brothers.
Just as a mother, with sweet pious face,
Yearns towards her little children from her seat,
Gives one a kiss, another an embrace,
Takes this upon her knees, that on her feet ;
And while from actions, looks, complaints, pretences,
She learns their feelings and their various will,
To this a look, to that a word, dispenses,
And, whether stern or smiling, loves them still;
So Providence for us, high, infinite,
Makes our necessities its watchful task,
Hearkens to all our prayers, helps all our wants,
And, even if it denies what seems our right,
Either denies because 'twould have us ask,
Or seems but to deny, or in denying grants.
FROM "THE DEATH OF SOCRATES."
"KNOW'ST thou the way to that invisible shore?"
Said Cebes: "Hath thine eye then scanned it o'er?"
"Friends, to that world my steps are drawing near,
More and more clearly I its music hear,
And to behold its scenes with open eye-
"What, must we?" Phedon said.
There is, somewhere in the immense expanse,
To mortals inaccessible, perchance
Far overhead beyond the arching skies,
Perchance around us, here, on earth, it lies,
Another world, a heaven, an Elysium, where
Not streams of honey glide through amber fair,
Nor virtuous souls, by God alone renewed,
Drink nectar and partake ambrosial food,
But sainted shades, immortal spirits come
To take the crown of earthly martyrdom !
Neither dark Tempé, nor the laughing height
Of Menelus, when morning's rosy light
Plays round it, and her breath with perfumes rare
Fills all the fresh, intoxicating air,
The vales of Hemus, nor the rich hill-sides
Where, with sweet murmurings, Eurotas glides,
Nor yet that land, the poets' chosen shore,
Where the charmed traveller thinks of home no more, Not all of these can match that blest abode
Where the soul's daylight is the look of God!
can never come, nor night of death, Where in love's atmosphere the soul draws breath! Where bodies that ne'er die, or die to live, For finer pleasures finer senses give!"
"What! bodies ev'n in heaven? side by side, Death ranged with life?".
By the transfiguring soul, who, to compose
These heavenly vestments, through creation goes,
Culling the flower of the elements;
All that is present in the world of sense,
The tender rays of the transparent light,
The softest tints that blend in solar white,
The sweetest scents exhaled by evening flowers,
The murmured cadences at midnight hours,
Or o'er the bosom of the sighing seas,
The flame that shoots in jets of blue and gold,
Crystal of streams beneath a pure sky rolled,
The purple tinge Aurora gives her sails,
When first they flutter in the morning gales,
The rays of tremulous stars that, imaged, sleep
On the calm mirror of the silent deep,
All, blended, form beneath her plastic hand
A body pliant to the soul's command,
And she who, once bound down with many a chain,
'Gainst her revolted senses warred in vain,
To-day, triumphant o'er her indolence,
Majestically rules the world of sense,
Creates new senses, pleasures, endlessly,
And plays with space, time, life, creation
** He seemed to slumber in a dream's embrace. The intrepid Cebes, gazing in his face, By every art of yearning friendship tries
To summon back into his fading eyes
The soul fast parting with the feeble breath, And questions him e'en on the brink of death: "Sleep'st thou? Is death a slumber? Speak!" he
Gathering his energies, the sage replied:
"Veiled are not thine eyes
With funeral shadows?"... "No; I see arise
Amidst the shades a pure and heavenly day!"
"Hear'st thou no groans
But stars of gold that, as in heaven they flame,
Murmur in circling choir a holy name!" . . .
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