 | The poems, sacred, passionate, and humorous, of Nathaniel Parker Willis |  |
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THE THOUGHT ANGEL.
A WAKING AND SLEEPING DREAM.
Night is the sick man's day,
For the soul wakens as the body fails.
I had told the weary hours; but, with the hush
Of midnight, my last memory of pain
Behold, all calmly with it, on the cloud,
Rode a wing'd angel with an open book;
And—of the hearts it moved—and of the dreams,
Passions, and hopes it call'd on as it flew—
Of all it gave a voice to, that had else
Slumber'd unutter'd in the Thought-ruled world—
That angel kept a record.
For the soul wakens as the body fails.
I had told the weary hours; but, with the hush
Of midnight, my last memory of pain
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Rode a wing'd angel with an open book;
And—of the hearts it moved—and of the dreams,
Passions, and hopes it call'd on as it flew—
Of all it gave a voice to, that had else
Slumber'd unutter'd in the Thought-ruled world—
That angel kept a record.
“Thou, hereafter,”
Said a voice near me, “shalt that record hear;
For, in thy using of that gift of power,
Speeding WHAT Thought THOU WILT ACROSS THE WORLD,
Thou speak'st with the pervading voice of God,
And, as thy sway of the world's heart, will be
The reckoning with thy Maker. Human Thought,
Oh poet, lightly may take wondrous wings.
Thy careless link binds words to travel far.
But oh, take heed!—for see—by dream-revealing—
How Thoughts of power with angels go attended,
Outfleeting never the calm pen that writes
Their history for Heaven!”
Said a voice near me, “shalt that record hear;
For, in thy using of that gift of power,
Speeding WHAT Thought THOU WILT ACROSS THE WORLD,
Thou speak'st with the pervading voice of God,
And, as thy sway of the world's heart, will be
The reckoning with thy Maker. Human Thought,
Oh poet, lightly may take wondrous wings.
Thy careless link binds words to travel far.
But oh, take heed!—for see—by dream-revealing—
How Thoughts of power with angels go attended,
Outfleeting never the calm pen that writes
Their history for Heaven!”
The sun shone in
Upon my wind-stirr'd curtains, and I woke.
And this had been a dream. 'Tis sometimes so:—
We dream ourselves what we have striven to be,
And hear what had been well for us to hear,
Did our dreams shadow what we are.
Upon my wind-stirr'd curtains, and I woke.
And this had been a dream. 'Tis sometimes so:—
We dream ourselves what we have striven to be,
And hear what had been well for us to hear,
Did our dreams shadow what we are.
| The poems, sacred, passionate, and humorous, of Nathaniel Parker Willis | |