Baby-Heaven

He who on the mountain stands
Sees the clouds with dusky hands
Wipe out river, sea and lands,
       Rain and thunder—groaning thunder,
       Drenching, shaking all things under,
While above clear Heaven expands.

So beneath illumined spheres
Earth’s disordered gloom appears,
All below in sobs and tears,
       With a glory, joyous glory,
       Fills that ever open doorway
Heaven reveals to lofty Seers

There were brooks are living glee,
Birds are winged melody
And delight thrills flower and tree,
       Gladdest Heaven, the Baby Heaven,
       Blooms and laughs, of all the seven
Sweetest in its purity.

All the air is warm and blest,
On its waves they leap or rest
Even as on a mother’s breast;
       Oh! and tender smiles,—how tender!
       Ripple from the Throned Splendor,
The Great Love made manifest.

An Innumerable band
Over all that glorious land
Singly move, or hand in hand,
       Or go flocking, closely flocking,
       With their white arms interlocking,
To a music sweet, but grand.

Down its deeps as down a mine,
O’er its levels crystalline,
Up its clouds of glory-shine,
       Floating, flying swiftly flying,
       On linked harmonies relying,
As on wings they shift and twine.

From the centre of each group
There the ranks wind out and ope,
Rolled in many a mystic trope,
       Flower-like fashions, star-like fashions,
       The dissolving constellations
Of some vast kaleidoscope.

Here in long-drawn order set,
One by one they shoot up straight,
Like a fountain’s silver jet,
       Soon rolled over, round and over,
       Grouped as petals, see them hover
In a living Lily met!

There they flame like autumn’s march,
When bright leaves the whirlwinds charge;
And anon a rainbow arch
       Leaps in crescent, vaulting crescent,
       Vivid, swift, and iridescent,
To the crystal Ocean’s marge.

As the living pictures change,
Through a bright and endless range
Ever beautiful and strange,
       Many another and another
       Won from each reluctant mother
Join their mystic interchange.

All their budded lines unfold
In a beauty never told
To the deep=eyed Seers of old;
       Love and Wisdom—frownless Wisdom,
       Love’s own Lord, have stopped and kissed them,
Whence their souls grow larger souled.

Startled by a moan below,
Where the trailing shadows go,—
Earthly loss and earthly woe—
       To my vision within vision,
       Far above toward Life’s fruition,
From the dark emerging slow.

One I saw the Angels bear
Up the sapphire steeps of air,
To the God-throne’s golden stair,—
       Katrine’s baby—darling baby!
       All as sweet as childhood may be,
With a glory in her hair!

And that little flitting smile
That she sunned us with erewhile,
Lighted all her infantile
       Earnest features, pensive features,
       With a ray that seemed to reach us,
Smiling down the golden aidle;

For a voice she never heard,
Sweeter-tone than any bird,
Hailed her with this tender word,
       “Welcome Sister! darling Sister!”
       Flung far down the roseate vistas,
While the air with song was stirred.

By an instinct high and rare,
Misty here but luminous there,
Out of myriads heavenly fair
       She knew Maggie, Angel Maggie,
       Leaping on the white clouds craggy,
Dancing down the vibrant air!

And that larger Little One
Took the Less, and straight begun
All her form to over-run
       With swift kisses, eager kisses,
       As when crowned with mother-blisses,
Might a last year’s wife have done.

O, and then what joy of song
Rose from all that lovely throng,
Deep and mellow, clear and strong
       Welcome, Ethel! Angel Ethel!
       Welcome to our starry Bethel,
Life is short, but Heaven is long!”