Still to the sorcery of August skies In frilled crimson flaunt the hollyhocks, Where, lithely poised along the garden walks, His little maid enamoured blithe outvies The dipping butterflies In motion -- ah, in grace how grown the while, Since he was wont to render to her eyes His knightly court, or touch with flitting smile Her father's heart by his true flatteries! XVI But summer's golden pastures boast no trail So splendid as our fretted snowshoes blaze Where, sharp across the amethystine ways, Iron Ascutney looms in azure mail, And, like a frozen grail, The frore sun sets, intolerably fair; Mute, in our homebound snow-tracks, we exhale The silvery cold, and soon -- where bright logs flare -- Talk the long indoor hours, till embers fail. XVII Ah, with the smoke what smouldering desires Waft to the starlight up the swirling flue! -- Thoughts that may never, as the swallows do, Nest circling homeward to their native fires! Ardors the soul suspires The extinct stars drink with the dreamer's breath; The morning-song of Eden's early choirs Grows dim with Adam; close at the ear of death Relentless angels tune our earthly lyres! XVIII Let it be so: More sweet it is to be A listener of love's ephemeral song, And live with beauty though it be not long, And die enamoured of eternity, Though in the apogee Of time there sit no individual Godhead of life, than to reject the plea Of passionate beauty: loveliness is all, And love is more divine than memory. Azrael. [Robert Gilbert Welsh] The angels in high places Who minister to us, Reflect God's smile, -- their faces Are luminous; Save one, whose face is hidden, (The Prophet saith), The unwelcome, the unbidden, Azrael, Angel of Death. And yet that veiled face, I know Is lit with pitying eyes, Like those faint stars, the first to glow Through cloudy winter skies. That they may never tire, Angels, by God's decree, Bear wings of snow and fire, -- Passion and purity; Save one, all unavailing, (The Prophet saith), His wings are gray and trailing, Azrael, Angel of Death. And yet the souls that Azrael brings Across the dark and cold, Look up beneath those folded wings, And find them lined with gold. The Flight. [Lloyd Mifflin] 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 splendour now incarnadines Our wings? -- THERE would I go and there abide." Then he as one who some child's thought divines: "That is the world where yesternight you died." The Rival. [James Whitcomb Riley]