THE GUARDIAN-ANGEL: A PICTURE AT FANO. I. Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave Shall find performed thy special ministry II. Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more, With those wings, white above the child who prays Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door! III. I would not look up thither past thy head Because the door opes, like that child, I know, For I should have thy gracious face instead, Thou bird of God! And wilt thou bend me low Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together, IV. If this was ever granted, I would rest My head beneath thine, while thy healing hands Close-covered both my eyes beside thy breast, Pressing the brain, which too much thought expands, Back to its proper size again, and smoothing Distortion down till every nerve had soothing, And all lay quiet, happy and supprest. V. How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired! VI. Guercino drew this angel I saw teach (Alfred, dear friend)—that little child to pray, Holding the little hands up, each to each Pressed gently, with his own head turned away Over the earth where so much lay before him Of work to do, though heaven was opening o'er him, And he was left at Fano by the beach. VII. We were at Fano, and three times we went --My angel with me too: and since I care VIII. And since he did not work so earnestly At all times, and has else endured some wrong, I took one thought his picture struck from me, And spread it out, translating it to song. My Love is here. Where are you, dear old friend? CLEON. "As certain also of your own poets have said" Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled isles, Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea, And laugh their pride when the light wave lisps "Greece")— To Protos in his Tyranny: much health! They give thy letter to me, even now: Woven of sea-wools, with her two white hands Well-counselled, king, in thy munificence ! For so shall men remark, in such an act Of love for him whose song gives life its joy, To help on life in straight ways, broad enough Of some eventual rest a-top of it, Whence, all the tumult of the building hushed, To pour libation, looking o'er the sea, Making this slave narrate thy fortunes, speak Thy letter's first requirement meets me here. It is as thou hast heard: in one short life I, Cleon, have effected all those things Thou wonderingly dost enumerate. That epos on thy hundred plates of gold Is mine, and also mine the little chaunt So sure to rise from every fishing-bark When, lights at prow, the seamen haul their nets. The image of the sun-god on the phare, Men turn from the sun's self to see, is mine; D D |