THE ANGEL OF THE SOUL.

Silence hath conquered thee, imperial Night! Thou sit'st alone within her void, cold halls, Thy solemn brow uplifted, and thy soul Paining the space with dumb and mighty thought. The dreary wind ebbs, voiceless, round thy form, Following the stealthy hours, that wake no stir In the hushed velvet of thy mantle's fold. Thy thoughts take being: down the dusky aisles Go shapes of good, and beckoning ghosts of crime, And dreams of maddening beauty—hopes, that shine To darken, and in cloudy height sublime, The spectral march of some approaching Doom! Nor these alone, oh! Mother of the world, People thy chambers, echoless and vast; Their dewy freshness like ambrosial cools Life's fever-thirst, and to the fainting soul Their porphyry walls are touched with light, and gleams Of shining wonder dazzle through the void, Like those bright marvels which the travele'rs torch Wakes from the darkness of three thousand years, In rock-hewn sepulchres of Theban kings. Prophets, whose brows of pale, unearthly glow Reflect the twilight of celestial dawns, And bards, transfigured in immortal song, Like eager children, kneeling at thy feet, Unclasp the awful volume of thy lore. My soul goes down thy far, untrodden paths, To the dim verge of being. There its step Touches the threshold of sublimer life, And through the boundless empyrean leaps Its prayer, borne like a faint, expiring cry, To angel-warders, listening as they pace The crystal walls of Heaven. Down the blue fields Of the untraveled Infinite, they come: Beneath their wings one sweet, dilating wave Thrills the pure deep, and bears my soul aloft, To walk amid their shining groups, and call Its guardian spirit, as an orphan calls His vanished brother, taken in childhood home: "White through my cradled dreams thy pinions waved, Lost Angel of the Soul! thy presence led The babe's faint gropings through the glimmering dark And into Being's conscious dawn. Thy hand Held mine in childhood, and thy beaming cheek Lay close, like some fond playmate's, to mine own. Up to that boundary, whence the heart leaps forth To life, like some wild torrent, when the rains Pour dark and full upon the cloudy hills, Thy gentle footsteps wandered near to mine. Be with me now! Oh, in the starry hush Of the deep night, that holds the earthly down In all my nature, bring to me again The early purity, which kept thy hand From the entrancing harp it held in Heaven! Through the warm starting of my hoarded tears, Let me behold thine eyes divine, as stars Gleam through the twilight vapors of the sea! "Not yet hast thou forsaken me. The prayer Whose crowning fervor lifts my nature up Midway to God, may still evoke thy form. Thou hast been with me, when the midnight dew Clung damp upon my brow, and the broad fields Stretched far and dim beneath the ghostly moon; When the dark, awful woods were silent near, And with imploring hands toward the stars Clasped in mute yearning, I have questioned Heaven For the lost language of the book of Life. Oh, then thy face was glorious, and thy hair On the white moonbeam floating, veiled thy brow, But in the holy sadness of thine eye Which held my spirit, tremblingly I saw, Through rushing tears, the sign of angel-grief O'er the false promise of diviner years. From the far glide of some descending strain Of tenderest music I have heard thy voice; And thou hast called amid the stormy rush Of grand orchestral triumph, with a sound Resistless in its power. I feel the light, Which is thine atmosphere, around my soul, When a great sorrow gulfs it from the world. "Come back! come back! my heart grows faint, to know How thy withdrawing radiance leaves more dim The twilight borders of the night of Earth. Now when the bitter truth is learned; when all That seemed so high and good but mocks its seeming— When the warm dreams of youth come shivering back, In the cold chambers of the heart to die— When, with the wrestling years, familiar grows The merciless hand of pain, desert me not! Come with the true heart of the faithful Night, When I have cast away the masquing garb Of hollow Day, and lain my soul to rest On her consoling bosom! From the founts Of thine exhaustless light, make clear the road Through toil and darkness, into God's repose!"