Mimma Bella - Part 4

IV

If we could know the silent shapes that pass

Across our lives, we should perchance have seen

God's Messenger with dusky pinions lean

Above the cot, and scan as in the glass.

Of some clear forest water, framed in grass,

The likeness of his own seraphic mien;

And heard the call, implacably serene,

Of Him Who is, Who will be, and Who was.

O Azrail, why tookest thou the child

'Neath thy great wings, that lock as in a vice,

From all that is alive and warm and fond.

To where a rayless sun that never smiled

Looks down on his own face in the pale ice

Of vast and lifeless seas in the Beyond?