The Flight

Upon a cloud among the stars we stood.
The angel raised his hand and looked and said,
"Which world, of all yon starry myriad
Shall we make wing to?" The still solitude
Became a harp whereon his voice and mood
Made spheral music round his haloed head.
I spake--for then I had not long been dead--
"Let me look round upon the vasts, and brood
A moment on these orbs ere I decide ...
What is yon lower star that beauteous shines
And with soft splendor now incarnadines
Our wings?--There would I go and there abide."
He smiled as one who some child's thought divines:
"That is the world where yesternight you died."