The Flight

UPON a cloud among the stars we stood.

The angel raised his hand and looked and said,

“Which world, of all yon starry myriad,

Shall we make wing to?” The still solitude

Became a harp whereon his voice and mood

Made spheral music round his haloed head.

I spake—for then I had not long been dead—

“Let me look round upon the vasts, and brood

A moment on these orbs ere I decide …

What is yon lower star that beauteous shines

And with soft splendour now incarnadines

Our wings?—There would I go and there abide.”

Then he as one who some child’s thought divines:

“That is the world where yesternight you died.”