Sweet seraph! Borne upon the wings of love, Softly thou cometh from the realms above, With kiss as light as air, and gentler breath, More beauteous thou than thy pale brother Death, Yet not so calm as he, though both bestow A wondrous loveliness o’er cheek and brow; He with a regal majesty so marble cold In immobility of matchless grace doth mould Each feature with the waxen beauty of the tomb, While thou dost lend the blush of living bloom, And the soft dew of Heaven doth linger there, And lovely Peace imprints her image fair. When eve in crimson splendour of delight Falleth, thou Spirit of the starry night, And they, all million-eyed in radiance shine, Like scattered silver seeds o’er fields divine, Thou to dear children giveth dreamless rest, Softly embraced upon thy tender breast, While care-worn sufferers on the tideless sea Of blissful dreams forget their misery, And bask in visions of the verdurous hills Of some enchanted isle where flashing rills, Gushing sweet music, to the green vales flow, Where cool, slim palms their graceful shadows throw-- Angel of love, by dear Compassion led, To fold in deep repose each weary head. Nature’s sweet nurse, oh ever near us stay Till, life’s dreams o’er, “the shadows flee away.” WHAT IS MAN? Monarch of all the animals is man, but what his goal? Being material, yet endowed with an immortal soul, Whence comes he? Hath he lived before? He knoweth not, But if he be immortal, must be Heaven-begot. To live for naught in the great cosmic plan Would prove him lesser than his claim as man. Alone he stands amid his empire, clothed with speech, And attributes of reason and intelligence to reach The heights sublime, for he alone surveys The skies or lifts his eyes to mark the boundless ways Of the vast galaxy of the celestial star-strewn plains, He of the mighty animal kingdom o’er which he reigns, He who is but the veriest echo of the Almighty sound, A faint reflection of his Maker, but who yet is bound By ties unbreakable, for doth he not receive The realm of thought from Him, the air to breathe? The glorious constellations move in their appointed place To the deep throbbing heart-beats of the universe. The planets, trembling arteries of the spacious whole, With each frail mortal the molecule called soul, And he in turn respondeth to the Almighty thought, Each entity distinct, yet like the other wrought; Creature of elements mysterious, half divine! Emotional, fearful, yet vibrating to the electric line Of the invisible, which holds him startled at the flight And magnitude of thought soaring beyond the night Of mundane things; then asks himself--as thousands more-- If death the end of all created beings is, wherefore All the ennobling longings in the human mind innate