Our Guardian Angels and Their Children

Where a river roars in rapids
  And doves in maples fret,
  Where peace has decked the pastures
  Our guardian angels met.

  Long they had sought each other
  In God's mysterious name,
  Had climbed the solemn chaos tides
  Alone, with hope aflame:

  Amid the demon deeps had wound
  By many a fearful way.
  As they beheld each other
  Their shout made glad the day.

  No need of purse delayed them,
  No hand of friend or kin—
  Nor menace of the bell and book,
  Nor fear of mortal sin.

  You did not speak, my girl,
  At this, our parting hour.
  Long we held each other
  And watched their deeds of power.

  They made a curious Eden.
  We saw that it was good.
  We thought with them in unison.
  We proudly understood

  Their amaranth eternal,
  Their roses strange and fair,
  The asphodels they scattered
  Upon the living air.

  They built a house of clouds
  With skilled immortal hands.
  They entered through the silver doors.
  Their wings were wedded brands.

  I labored up the valley
  To granite mountains free.
  You hurried down the river
  To Zidon by the sea.

  But at their place of meeting
  They keep a home and shrine.
  Your angel twists a purple flax,
  Then weaves a mantle fine.

  My angel, her defender
  Upstanding, spreads the light
  On painted clouds of fancy
  And mists that touch the height.

  Their sturdy babes speak kindly
  And fly and run with joy,
  Shepherding the helpless lambs—
  A Grecian girl and boy.

  These children visit Heaven
  Each year and make of worth
  All we planned and wrought in youth
  And all our tears on earth.

  From books our God has written
  They sing of high desire.
  They turn the leaves in gentleness.
  Their wings are folded fire.