 | The Poetical Works of John Payne |  |
ANGEL DEATH.
LO! I have made an end of many things,Singing; yet never have I sung to thee,
Belovèd angel, that by Life's sad sea
Standest star-crowned, whilst all the dusk air rings
With the quick spirit-pulse of viewless wings:
No voice of mine has lifted litany
To thee with song, no hand of mine set free
The soul of praise that slumbers in the strings.
For am I not to thee as one (in this)
That lingers by some shining water-deeps,
When the slow tide sings in its moon-stilled sleeps,
Until his heart-strings catch its harmonies
And his life pulses to the time it keeps:
And yet thereof no thing he speaks, ywis.
| The Poetical Works of John Payne | |