Another marvel:[23] someone has me fast Within his ample palm; 'tis not a grasp Such as they use on earth, but all around Over the surface of my subtle being, As though I were a sphere, and capable To be accosted thus, a uniform 230 And gentle pressure tells me I am not Self-moving, but borne forward on my way. And hark! I hear a singing; yet in sooth I cannot of that music rightly say Whether I hear or touch or taste the tones. Oh what a heart-subduing melody! ANGEL My work is done,[24] My task is o'er, And so I come, Taking it home, 240 For the crown is won, Alleluia. For evermore. My Father gave In charge to me This child of earth E'en from its birth, To serve and save, Alleluia, And saved is he. 250 This child of clay To me was given, To rear and train By sorrow and pain In the narrow way, Alleluia, From earth to heaven. SOUL It is a member of that family Of wondrous beings, who, ere the worlds were made, Millions of ages back, have stood around 260 The throne of God:--he never has known sin; But through those cycles all but infinite, Has had a strong and pure celestial life, And born to gaze on th' unveiled face of God And drank from the eternal Fount of truth, And served Him with a keen ecstatic love. Hark! he begins again. ANGEL O Lord, how wonderful in depth and height, But most in man, how wonderful Thou art! With what a love, what soft persuasive might 270 Victorious o'er the stubborn fleshly heart Thy tale complete of saints Thou dost provide To fill the thrones which angels lost through pride! He lay a grovelling babe upon the ground, Polluted in the blood of his first sire, With his whole essence shattered and unsound, And, coiled around his heart, a demon dire, Which was not of his nature, but had skill To bind and form his opening mind to ill. Then was I sent from heaven to set right 280 The balance in his soul of truth and sin, And I have waged a long relentless fight, Resolved that death-environed spirit to win, Which from its fallen state, when all was lost, Had been repurchased at so dread a cost. Oh what a shifting parti-coloured scene Of hope and fear, of triumph and dismay, Of recklessness and penitence, has been The history of that dreary, lifelong fray! And oh the grace to nerve him and to lead, 290 How patient, prompt, and lavish at his need!