Classic Poem

Progressing still, the bright-faced Seraph rose
From Goodness to Perfection, till she stood
The fairest and the best of all that waked
The tuneful echoes of that lofty world,
Where Lucifer, then the stateliest of the throng
Of Angels, walked majestical, arrayed
In robes of brightness worthy of his place.
And all the intermediate spheres were homes
Of the existences
Of spiritual life.
Love, the divine arcanum, was the bond
That linked them to each other—heart to heart,
And angel world to world, and soul to soul,
Thus the first ages passed,
Cycles of perfect bliss,
God the acknowledged sovereign of all.
Sphere spake with sphere, and love conversed with love,
From the far centre to sublimest height,
And down the deep, unfathomable space,
To the remotest homes of angel-life,
A viewless chain of being circling all,
And linking every spirit to its God.

ANGEL CHORUS .

  Spirits that never falter,
 Before God's altar
Rehearse their pæans of unceasing praise;
 Their theme the boundless love
 By which God rules above,
 Mysteriously engrafted
 On grace divine, and wafted
Into every soul of man that disobeys.

 Not till the wondrous being
 Of the All-Seeing
Is manifested to finite man,
 Can ye understand the love
 By which God rules above,
 Evermore extending,
 In circles never ending,
To every atom in the universal plan.

SECOND ANGEL .

 Oh, the love beyond computing
Of the high and holy place!
The unseen bond
Circling beyond
 The limits of time and space.

Through earth and her world of beauty
 The heavenly links extend;
Man feels its presence,
Imbibes its essence,
 But cannot yet comprehend.

THIRD ANGEL .

But the days are fast approaching,
 When the Father of Love will send
His interpreter
From the highest sphere,
 That man fully may comprehend.