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 splendor now incarnadines
Our wings? — There would I go and there abide. "
He smiled as one who some child's thought divines:
" That is the world where yesternight you died. "