Only Believe

     I stood by weeping
Yet a sorrowful silence keeping
While an Angel smote my love
     As she lay sleeping.

   "Is there a bed above
     More fragrant than these violets
   That are white like death?"

     "White like a dove,
   Flowers in the blessed islets
     Breathe sweeter breath
   All fair morns and twilights."

     "Is the gold there
   More golden than these tresses?"

   "There heads are aureoled
     And crowned like gold
     With light most rare."

     "Are the bowers of Heaven
     More choice than these?"

     "To them are given
   All odorous shady trees
   Earth's bowers are wildernesses,
   Compared with the recesses
     Made soft there now
   Nest-like twixt bough and bough."

   "Who shall live in such a nest?"

     "Heart with heart at rest:
     All they whose troubles cease
          In peace:
       Souls that wrestled
       Now are nestled
       There at ease,—
   Throng from east and west,
       From north and south,
To plenty from the land of drouth."