17.06.2007, 22:07
The Flight
Upon a cloud among the stars we stood:
The angel raised his hand, and looked, and said,
"Which world of all yon starry myriad
Shall we make wing to?" The still solitude
Became a harp whereon his voice and mood
Made spheral music round his haloed head.
I spoke--for then I had not long been dead--
"Let me look round upon the wastes, and brood
A moment on these orbs ere I decide. . .
What is yon lower star that beauteous shines,
And with soft splendor now incarnadines
Our wings?--There would I go, and there abide."
Then he, as one who some child's thought divines:
"That is that world where yesternight you died."
Upon a cloud among the stars we stood:
The angel raised his hand, and looked, and said,
"Which world of all yon starry myriad
Shall we make wing to?" The still solitude
Became a harp whereon his voice and mood
Made spheral music round his haloed head.
I spoke--for then I had not long been dead--
"Let me look round upon the wastes, and brood
A moment on these orbs ere I decide. . .
What is yon lower star that beauteous shines,
And with soft splendor now incarnadines
Our wings?--There would I go, and there abide."
Then he, as one who some child's thought divines:
"That is that world where yesternight you died."