Anthony was, for many days after his awakening, only just alive. He had been somewhere out of this real life, not there, not here, but into an awful land, a land of the shadow of death, "a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt:"
"But while he lay at death's door, two strong angels took him,
And swung him in a hammock made of cloud;
With an undulating motion, from the west to east they shook him,
Lying plastic, and in mist, as in a shroud.
"They towered above the earth, as do elms above the grasses,
And even-handed, swung him to and fro;
He felt the vibrant life, and the sharp, contending
Of streams of air which grapple as they flow.
"The angels swung him over seas, whose sounding drums did thrill him,
And back above the homes of sleeping men;
They swung him over mountains that their piney breath might fill him,
They swept an arc from stars to stars again.
"The man lay at death's door. But the cradle of here-after
Rocked slowly—slowly settled from its sweep,
'He has caught a broader life,' said the angels, with soft laughter;
'Let him sleep! Let him sleep! Let—him—sleep!'"
