The Angel of the Home

                              I.
I can believe that spirit-forms divine,
     Stand ever close to thine: 
That, not infrequent to thine eye is given
     Glimpses and gleams of heaven; 
And falls seraphic music from the spheres
     Upon thy listening ears, 
While God's own peace, with its serene repose,
     Through all thy being flows.

That angels walked the earth in days of yore
     A fable seems no more: 
I can believe that to the Patriarch's tent
     In shining garb they went,
Bearing a blessing to his bed and board
     From the dear, loving Lord, 
And left, returning to their native sky,
     A light that cannot die.

For all that in such myths seems loveliest 
     Is in thy life expressed !
The starry souls that walk the Hills of Light,
     Than thine are not more white; 
Nor is their angel-ministry than thine
     More love-fraught and divine, 
As he can tell who names in one word, "Wife!"
     The Angel of his life !

                              II.
To thee I can give nothing : my poor verse 
Falters to silence when it would rehearse
     Thy praises, and my reverence for thee. 
I can compel no words that may express 
My loving sense of all thy loveliness,
     And the large tender soul I therein see. 
If angels love thee, 'tis but sisterly — 
They know their kin ; and even our half-sealed eyes 
Can see that effluence of the upper skies 
That robes thy spirit with its purity.
     Enough for me, that I have breathed the air 
Of the sweet home that is thy fitting shrine, 
And caught new glimpses of the life divine
     In thy dear life, that makes that home so fair.