University of Virginia Library

VISION OF THE HEAVENLY ONES.

'Twas in the flowery month of May,
About the noontide hour of day,
That two bright Angels, full of love,
Came down to me from Heaven above,
With golden harps within their hands,
Made in the high Elysian Lands,
Amid the Bowers of Asphodel,
Where Angel-souls forever dwell—
Bright golden harps with silver strings,
Which they o'ershadowed with their wings,
Outstretched above of snowy white,
Now glinting back the golden light
From God's high throne in Heaven above—
The light of his eternal love—
Which, striking, they now sang to me
A song of joy incessantly—
A holy song of heavenly love,
Such as the Angels sing above—
Such as the Angels sing on high—
A song of immortality.
They were two infant Cherubim
Who sang to me that Heavenly Hymn.
One had the same cerulean eyes
Of my first-born now in the skies;
The other's eyes were dark, with light
Therein like Hesperus to the night—
Such as to my dear son were given,
The Image of that One from Heaven;
For my dear children had the eyes
Of those bright Angels from the skies—
The same as they appeared to me
Eight years before their infancy.
'Twas in the flowery month of May,
About the noontide hour of day,
And on the same day in the year
On which the Angels did appear,
Revealing joys which were, to me,
Prophetic of what was to be—
That tidings came to me what morn
Allegra Florence should be born;
And she was born—the very child
That came to me, the undefiled,
And played upon her harp that day,
All in the flowery month of May.
How beautiful, divine, thou wert,
Thus issuing from thy mother's heart,
Singing, most piteously, to me
The first song of thine infancy.
She was my Salem from her birth—
My young Jerusalem on earth—
Allegra Florence with blue eyes,
Who, at the gate of Paradise,
Now stands, all purified from sin,
Waiting to let her father in
The Old Jerusalem above—
The Holy Land of Heavenly Love.