I was awake:--It was an open plain
Illimitable--stretching, stretching--oh, so far!
And o'er it that strange light--a glorious light
Like that the stars shed over fields of snow
In a clear, cloudless, frosty winter night,
Only intenser in its brilliance calm.
And in the midst of that vast plain, I saw,
For I was wide awake--it was no dream,
A tree with spreading branches and with leaves
Of divers kinds--dead silver and live gold,
Shimmering in radiance that no words may tell!
Beside the tree an Angel stood; he plucked
A few small sprays, and bound them round my head.
Oh, the delicious touch of those strange leaves!
No longer throbbed my brows, no more I felt
The fever in my limbs--"And oh," I cried,
"Bind too my father's forehead with these leaves."
One leaf the Angel took and therewith touched
His forehead, and then gently whispered "Nay!"
Never, oh never had I seen a face
More beautiful than that Angel's, or more full
Of holy pity and of love divine.
Wondering I looked awhile--then, all at once
Opened my tear-dimmed eyes--When lo! the light
Was gone--the light as of the stars when snow
Lies deep upon the ground.
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