Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 1.djvu/752

  That but for this our souls were free,
    And but for that our lives were blest;
  That in some season yet to be
    Our cares will leave us time to rest.

  Whene'er we groan with ache or pain,
    Some common ailment of the race,—
  Though doctors think the matter plain,—
    That ours is "a peculiar case."

  That when like babes with fingers burned
    We count one bitter maxim more,
  Our lesson all the world has learned,
    And men are wiser than before.

  That when we sob o'er fancied woes,
    The angels hovering overhead
  Count every pitying drop that flows
    And love us for the tears we shed.

  That when we stand with tearless eye
    And turn the beggar from our door,
  They still approve us when we sigh,
    "Ah, had I but one thousand more!"

  That weakness smoothed the path of sin,
    In half the slips our youth has known;
  And whatsoe'er its blame has been,
    That Mercy flowers on faults outgrown.

  Though temples crowd the crumbled brink
    O'erhanging truth's eternal flow,
  Their tablets bold with what we think,
    Their echoes dumb to what we know;

  That one unquestioned text we read,
    All doubt beyond, all fear above,
  Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed
    Can burn or blot it: God is Love!

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
Chant 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;—