The Guardian-Angel

Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leaveThat child, when thou hast done with him, for me!Let me sit all the day here, that when eveShall find performed thy special ministry,And time come for departure, thou, suspendingThy flight, mayst see another child for tending,Another still, to quiet and retrieve.

Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more,From where thou standest now, to where I gaze,--And suddenly my head is covered o'erWith those wings, white above the child who praysNow on that tomb--and I shall feel thee guardingMe, out of all the world; for me, discardingYon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door.

I would not look up thither past thy headBecause the door opes, like that child, I know,For I should have thy gracious face instead,Thou bird of God! And wilt thou bend me lowLike him, and lay, like his, my hands together,And lift them up to pray, and gently tetherMe, as thy lamb there, with thy garment's spread?

If this was ever granted, I would restMy head beneath thine, while thy healing handsClose-covered both my eyes beside thy breast,Pressing the brain, which too much thought expands,Back to its proper size again, and smoothingDistortion down till every nerve had soothing,And all lay quiet, happy, and suppressed.

How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired!I think how I should view the earth and skiesAnd sea, when once again my brow was baredAfter thy healing, with such different eyes.O world, as God has made it! All is beauty:And knowing this, is love, and love is duty.What further may be sought for or declared?

Guercino drew this angel I saw teach(Alfred, dear friend!)--that little child to pray,Holding the little hands up, each to eachPressed gently--with his own head turned awayOver the earth where so much lay before himOf work to do, though heaven was opening o'er him,And he was left at Fano by the beach.

We were at Fano, and three times we wentTo sit and see him in his chapel there,And drink his beauty to our soul's content--My angel with me too; and since I careFor dear Guercino's fame (to which in powerAnd glory comes this picture for a dower,Fraught with a pathos so magnificent)--

And since he did not work thus earnestlyAt all times, and has else endured some wrong--I took one thought his picture struck from me,And spread it out, translating it to song.My love is here. Where are you, dear old friend?How rolls the Wairoa at your world's far end?This is Ancona, yonder is the sea.