Book VI, Canto II: Heaven's Ministry

" Then one of the fair flower-band
Led me gently by the hand :
Had I to choose among them all,
On him alone my heart would call !
Yet by my grief I was aware
Once more of our terrestrial air,
Of pestilential dens, where those
Grim horrors litter and repose.
I murmur ' Love ! need we return below ? '
' In heaven I am unhappy while I know
My playfellows in earth-life weeping so!
Ah ! when your anguished littleones are going.
We illume their way with gentle angel -glowing.
We tender visions of serene repose,
Havens from the weeping and the blows,
Hued like the rose,
Where a healing fountain flows !
Your mortal mind may never paint
All Love doth for them, when they faint ;
You divine not, you are blind.
Angel anodynes behind
Those outer agonies of dying ;
We wait invisible to soothe the sighing,
Till we may bear your ruffled birdlings home,
Where never hawk may come !
Poor earthbound eyes are native to the night.
Unapt to bear the dazzle of our light,
Familiar only with the realms of death,
Where many a formidable form drew breath ;
You only saw and heard the fiend ;
None of our cadences, who weaned
Your children from the breast of earth,
And fed with food of heavenly birth !
Yea, and we will arouse in very death.
That battens vampire-like on blood and breath,
A pang of life-revival, a faint qualm
Disturbing to the horrible cold calm
Of carrion conscience ; till it burn remorse.
Under the hot accumulating force
Of righteous indignation breathed thereon,
Until for these, these even, be well-won
Saving damnation of the fiercest hell ;
Heaven's own dread dawn, for all your bigots tell!'