Virginalia ; or, songs of my summer nights :: :: University of Virginia Library

Seraph-faced was my Celuta,
Meekly mild her Angel-beauty—
Doing good she deemed her duty—
Loving all she wished to know;
All God's highest, holiest nature
Was expressed in this sweet creature—
Heaven's own face lived in each feature,
In the days of long ago.

On the Asphodelian Meadows,
In the cool refreshing shadows
Of the Trees of God, we made us
Beds of flowers as white as snow,

Where we lay, while on before us
Flew the Angel-Hours in chorus,
Making all the air odorous,
In the days of long ago.

Like some Cygnet, silver-breasted,
In the rushes newly nested;
Or, like Moses when he rested,
Cradled on the wave below;
So my head lay on the pillow
Of her bosom's milky billow,
Underneath the Weeping Willow,
In the days of long ago.

There, with watchful eyes, beholding
God's sweet Eden-flower unfolding
All her radiant beauty, holding
To the Cross of Christ below;
I did seem in God's own presence,
In the realms of peaceful pleasance,
Like our First-born Eden-peasants
In the days of long ago.

As the glorified Orion,
From the Mount that he did die on,
Saw the Pleiades of Zion,
Clad in garments white as snow,
Up in Heaven in glory pining,
Through my tears, (deep grief divining,)
I now see the far-off shining
Of the days of long ago.

Grief, not age, has made me hoary!
Death has left my whole soul sorry!
This, my blue-eyed Morning Glory!
Thou dost more than truly know!

But the hopes that we now cherish
In our souls, shall never perish,
Till an Eden there shall flourish,
As in the days of long ago.

How my soul doth long to meet thee!
With what rapture could I greet thee!
Yielding, lest I should entreat thee,
With my heart's deep overflow,
In the flower-embalmed abysses
Of the Eden-wildernesses,
Filled with Heaven's immortal blisses,
As in days of long ago.