Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ANGEL'S WING by SAMUEL LOVER

First Line: WHEN BY THE EVENING'S QUIET LIGHT
When by the evening's quiet light
There sit two silent lovers,
They say, while in such tranquil plight,
An angel round them hovers;
And further still old legends tell,
The first who breaks the silent spell
To say a soft and pleasing thing,
Hath felt the passing angel's wing.


Thus a musing minstrel stray'd
By the summer ocean,
Gazing on a lovely maid
With a bard's devotion:-
Yet his love he never spoke
Till now the silent spell he broke;-
The hidden fire to flame did spring,
Fann'd by the passing angel's wing.


"I have loved thee well and long,
With love of Heaven's own making!-
This is not a poet's song,
But a true heart speaking;
I will love thee still, untired!"
He felt-he spoke-as one inspired-
The words did from Truth's fountain spring,
Upwaken'd by the angel's wing.


Silence o'er the maiden fell,
Her beauty lovelier making;-
And by her blush he knew full well
The dawn of love was breaking.
It came like sunshine o'er his heart!
He felt that they should never part,
She spoke-and oh!-the lovely thing
Had felt the passing angel's wing.


*POET'S NOTE: There is a German superstition, that when a sudden silence takes place in a
company, an angel at that moment makes a circuit among them, and the first person who breaks the
silence is supposed to have been touched by the wing of the passing seraph. For the purposes of
poetry, I thought two persons preferable to many, in illustrating this very beautiful superstition.




Home: PoetryExplorer.net