Page:Poems Barrett.djvu/40

   We came as if the Heavens were bowed
 To a milder music rare!
   Ye saw us in our solemn treading,
   Treading down the steps of cloud
   While our wings, outspreading
   Double calms of whiteness,
   Dropped superfluous brightness
   Down from stair to stair.

Second semichorus.
   Or, abrupt though tender,
    While ye gazed on space,
   We flashed our angel-splendour
    In either human face!
  With mystic lilies in our hands,
  From the atmospheric bands,
  Breaking, with a sudden grace,
    We took you unaware!
   While our feet struck glories
    Outward, smooth and fair,
   Which we stood on floorwise,
    Platformed in mid air.

First semichorus.
   Oft, when Heaven-descended,
    Shut up in a secret light
    Stood we speechless in your sight
   In a mute apocalypse!
   With dumb vibrations on our lips,
    From hosannas ended;
    And grand half-vanishings
    Of the forgone things,
    Within our eyes, belated!
   Till the heavenly Infinite
   Falling off from our Created,
   Left our inward contemplation
   Opening into ministration.