Or, if a right successive you declare When worms, for ivies, intertwine my hair, Take but this Poesy that now followeth My clayey best with sullen servile breath, Made then your happy freedman by testating death. My song I do but hold for you in trust, I ask you but to blossom from my dust. When you have compassed all weak I began, Diviner poet, and ah! diviner man-- The man at feud with the perduring child In you before song’s altar nobly reconciled-- From the wise heavens I half shall smile to see How little a world, which owned you, needed me. If, while you keep the vigils of the night, For your wild tears make darkness all too bright, Some lone orb through your lonely window peeps, As it played lover over your sweet sleeps, Think it a golden crevice in the sky, Which I have pierced but to behold you by! And when, immortal mortal, droops your head, And you, the child of deathless song, are dead; Then, as you search with unaccustomed glance The ranks of Paradise for my countenance, Turn not your tread along the Uranian sod Among the bearded counsellors of God; For, if in Eden as on earth are we, I sure shall keep a younger company: Pass where beneath their ranged gonfalons The starry cohorts shake their shielded suns, The dreadful mass of their enridged spears: Pass where majestical the eternal peers, The stately choice of the great Saintdom, meet-- A silvern segregation, globed complete In sandalled shadow of the Triune feet; Pass by where wait, young poet-wayfarer, Your cousined clusters, emulous to share With you the roseal lightnings burning ’mid their hair; Pass the crystalline sea, the Lampads seven:-- Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven. MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL BY KATHERINE TYNAN Not woman-faced and sweet, as look The angels in the picture-book; But terrible in majesty, More than an army passing by. His hair floats not upon the wind Like theirs, but curled and closely twined; Wrought with his aureole, so that none Shall know the gold curls from the crown. His wings he hath put away in steel, He goes mail-clad from head to heel; Never moon-silver hath outshone His breastplate and his morion. His brows are like a battlement, Beautiful, brave and innocent; His eyes with fires of battle burn-- On his strong mouth the smile is stern. His horse, the horse of Heaven, goes forth, Bearing him off to South and North, Neighing far off, as one that sees The battle over distances. His fiery sword is never at rest, His foot is in the stirrup prest; Through all the world where wrong is done Michael the Soldier rideth on. Michael, Commander! Angels are That sound the trumpet and that bear The banners by the Throne, where is The King one nameth on his knees.