Poems (Hale)/Celestial Visitants

by Mary Whitwell Hale

CELESTIAL VISITANTS.

 

"What could be more consoling, than the idea that the souls of those we once loved, were permitted to return and watch over our welfare?"Washington Irving.

Blest thought! that they, whose love was shed
 Around us in life's summer day;
They whom we call the lost, the dead,
 Still linger round our earthly way;
Still list to catch our varied strain,—
Or swelled with joy, or fraught with pain.

Sweet hope! that they whose glance has caught
 A light from heaven's all-hallowed flame,
May with love's changeless fervor fraught,
 Gaze on our pathway, still the same.
Ah! do they rest in tender truth,
Round the loved objects of their youth?

We gaze. Upon the filmy air,
 Their golden harps we may not see.
We wait to hear their low-breathed prayer,
 To catch the undying harmony.
It may not be. We list in vain.
We may not hear that glorious strain.

It cannot be. We may not know,
 Thus prisoned by our wall of clay,
What faithful hearts around us glow,
 In sun or shade, by night or day.
We may not tell what hand is given,
To guide our onward path to heaven.

Yet were the fancy soothing, sweet,
 To think, while here our spirits dwell,
That kindred hearts around us beat,
 That kindred songs in chorus swell;
That they, whose eye for us grew bright,
Still shed on us their changeless light.

That angel band! perchance our air
 Is fragrant with their balmy breath,
Perchance they kneel with us in prayer,—
 The truly "faithful unto death;*
And when life's golden chain is riven,
Waft us on angel wings to heaven.

The presence of the holy dead,—
 Whose eyes have looked on cloudless day,
O! be its gracious influence shed,
 To guide us in the narrow way;
That, when the eternal shore is pressed,
Our souls for aye in heaven may rest.