University of Virginia Library

In those good days, when yet-the world was new,
And man and angel talked, as friends now do,
When woman and her seraph-lover kist
Beneath the veil of that first silver mist
That watered Eden, ere the sinful showers
Began to fall on the young gardener's flowers,
Far off, beyond the mountains of the West,
A second Eve a second Adam blest,
As he blest her, each finding life complete
In their sweet selves, and in their children sweet;
And seraph-lovers oft, at night and morn,
For some dear woman's sake would leave their heaven forlorn.

Beyond these mountains, lone and far away,
Hesperia named, another Eden lay.
Tho' here some raindrops fell, at rise and close of day.
Once, two young sisters—passing where the gate
Of this sweet second Eden, like a fate,
Barring that tempting entrance seemed to wait-
Paused where a forest, sacred, mystic rose.
Breathless and silent with a dread repose,
It reared its walls of emerald, vast and high,
Roofed by the cloudy marble of the sky,
Touched with the dim religion of old days,
A sanctuary for everlasting praise.
Its columns giant trees, whose mighty shades,
Mingling, took shape in aisles and dim arcades;
With gorgeous leaves and blossoms some had bound
Their massive boles and gnarlèd branches round;
Some stood with wide-spread arms; and from aloft
Some drooped green wavering plumes all velvet-soft;
Or half expectant, half in mute surprise,
Watched as some great event were coming from the skies.
Birds of sweet voice as ever God had given
Sang to the royal sun and laughing heaven,
And when he fell into the awful sea
Thanked Him who made the sun with wild melodious glee;
The virgin Earth, all fresh with singing showers,
Wooed to her fragrant breast the first-born flowers;
In kingly purple clothed and turbaned pride,
They in the cool green silence lived and died.
Each as it fell, more beautiful in death,
Gave to a lovelier heir both bloom and breath,
That bud and leaf more richly might unfold,
Arrayed in living cloth of crimson, blue, and gold.
Quick down immeasured depths of forest-night,
Glanced the free insects, waving wings of light,
Or piloted themselves, like rainbow gleams
On the still bosom of the crystal streams,
In which the portraiture of the blue sky
Was mirrored, and in sweet inconstancy
Shone violet cloud and silver mist afar,
Round the pale crescent moon, and one deep distant star.

Hither the sisters came.