The Two Angels

The Two Angles.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
64.8

Two angels, one of Life and one of Death,
Passed o’er our village as the morning broke;
The dawn was on their faces, and beneath
The somber houses hearsed with plumes of smoke.

Their attitude and aspect were the same.
Alike their features and their robes of white;
But one was crowned with amaranth as with flame,
And one with aspodels, like flashes of light.

I saw them pause on their celestial way:
Then sald I, with deep fear and doubt oppressed:
“Beat not so loud, my heart, lest thou betray
The place where thy beloved are at rest!”

And he who wore the crown of aspodels,
Descending, at my door began to krock.
And my soul sank within mo as in wells
The water sinks beneath the earthquake’s shock.

I recognized the nameless agony.
The terror and the tremor and the pain.
That oft before had filled or haunted me.
And now returned with threefold strength again.

The door I opened to my heavenly guest
And listened, for I thought I heard God’s volce:
And knowing whatsoe’er he sent was best.
Dared neither to lament nor to rejoice.

Then with a smile that filled the house with light.
“My errand is not Death, but Life,” he said,
And ere I answered passing out of sight.
On his celestial embassy he sped.

‘Twas at thy door. O friend! and not at mine,
The angel with the amaranthine wreath,
Pausing. descended, and with voice divine.
Whispered a word that had a sound like Death.

Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom,
A shadow on those features fair and thin:
And softly from that hushed and darkened room,
Two angels Issued, where but one went in.

All is of God! If he but wave his hand
The mists collect, the rain falls thick and loud,
Till. with a smile of light on sea and land.
Lo! he looks back from the departing cloud.

Angels of Life and Death alike are his;
Without his leave they paxs no threshold o’er;
Who, then, would wish or dare, believing this.
Against his messengersto shut the door?