Dear and great Angel, would'st thou only leaveThat child, when thou hast done with him, for me!Let me sit all the day here, that when eveShall find performed thy special ministryAnd time come for departure, thou, suspendingThy flight, may'st see another child for tending,Another still, to quiet and retrieve.
Dear and great Angel, would'st thou only leaveThat child, when thou hast done with him, for me!Let me sit all the day here, that when eveShall find performed thy special ministryAnd time come for departure, thou, suspendingThy flight, may'st see another child for tending,Another still, to quiet and retrieve.
Painting by W. Russell Flint.THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.
Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leaveThat child, when thou hast done with him, for me!Let me sit all the day here, that when eveShall find performed thy special ministryAnd time come for departure, thou, suspendingThy flight, mayst see another child for tending,Another still, to quiet and retrieve.Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more,From where thou standest now, to where I gaze,—And suddenly my head is covered o'erWith those wings, white above the child who praysNow on that tomb—and I shall feel thee guardingMe, out of all the world; for me, discardingYon Heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door!I would not look up thither past thy headBecause the door opes, like that child, I know,For I should have thy gracious face instead,Thou bird of God! And wilt thou bend me lowLike him, and lay, like his, my hands together,And lift them up to pray, and gently tetherMe, as thy lamb there, with thy garments spread?...How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired!I think how I should view the earth and skiesAnd sea, when once again my brow was baredAfter thy healing, with such different eyes.O world, as God has made it! all is beauty:And knowing this, is love, and love is duty.What further may be sought for or declared?
Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leaveThat child, when thou hast done with him, for me!Let me sit all the day here, that when eveShall find performed thy special ministryAnd time come for departure, thou, suspendingThy flight, mayst see another child for tending,Another still, to quiet and retrieve.
Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more,From where thou standest now, to where I gaze,—And suddenly my head is covered o'erWith those wings, white above the child who praysNow on that tomb—and I shall feel thee guardingMe, out of all the world; for me, discardingYon Heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door!
I would not look up thither past thy headBecause the door opes, like that child, I know,For I should have thy gracious face instead,
Thou bird of God! And wilt thou bend me lowLike him, and lay, like his, my hands together,And lift them up to pray, and gently tetherMe, as thy lamb there, with thy garments spread?...
How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired!I think how I should view the earth and skiesAnd sea, when once again my brow was baredAfter thy healing, with such different eyes.O world, as God has made it! all is beauty:And knowing this, is love, and love is duty.What further may be sought for or declared?
Yet it was not to a celestial visitant that Browning's thoughts turned most, now or at any other time. It was towards the one love of his life,—towards that re-union, that restoration, that infrangible joy of retrieval, which was the goal of his whole desire. And, characteristically of the man who was "ever a fighter," he did not expect to reach his haven by a calm and prosperous passage. It had to be fought for—struggled for from strength to strength,—attained through incessant and arduous combat.For those do not "mount, and that hardly, to eternal life," who remain content upon terrestrial planes;
"Surely they see not God, I know,Nor all that chivalry of His,The soldier-saints, who, row on row,Burn upwards each to his point of bliss,Since, the end of life being manifest,He had cut his way through the world to this."
"Surely they see not God, I know,Nor all that chivalry of His,The soldier-saints, who, row on row,Burn upwards each to his point of bliss,Since, the end of life being manifest,He had cut his way through the world to this."
Therefore, as sleep, "Death's twin-brother," came slowly through the darkness, the fighter faced his last hour in imagination, and made haste to "greet the future with a cheer." ForProspiceis an "act of the faith which comes through love.... No lonely adventure is here to reward the victor o'er death: the transcendant joy is human love recovered":
Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat,The mist in my face,When the snows begin, and the blasts denoteI am nearing the place,The power of the night, the press of the storm,The post of the foe;Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,Yet the strong man must go:For the journey is done and the summit attained,And the barriers fall,Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,The reward of it all.I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more,The best and the last!I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,And bade me creep past.No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peersThe heroes of old,Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrearsOf pain, darkness and cold.For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,The black minute's at end,And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,Shall dwindle, shall blend,Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,Then a light, then thy breast,O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,And with God be the rest!(Prospice.)
Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat,The mist in my face,When the snows begin, and the blasts denoteI am nearing the place,The power of the night, the press of the storm,The post of the foe;Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,Yet the strong man must go:For the journey is done and the summit attained,And the barriers fall,Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,The reward of it all.I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more,The best and the last!I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,And bade me creep past.No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peersThe heroes of old,Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrearsOf pain, darkness and cold.For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,The black minute's at end,And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,Shall dwindle, shall blend,Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,Then a light, then thy breast,O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,And with God be the rest!(Prospice.)
Printed by Percy Lund, Humphries & Co., Ltd., Bradford and London.