As a glad mother, gathered him

 Unto her heart. And all the people then, Women and men, and children too, Crept back, and back, and back, and on, Still as the morning shadows do. 

Women and men, and children too,

Still as the morning shadows do.

 And left them in the lifting dawn—they two, On her sad breast, his shining head Stirred softly, as were he the living one, And she had been the moveless dead. 

On her sad breast, his shining head

And she had been the moveless dead.

 And yet we crept on, back, and back, and on. The distance widened like the sky, Between our little restlessness, And Love so godlike that it could not die. 

The distance widened like the sky,

And Love so godlike that it could not die.

 

 

   II. 

 

 VITTORIA. 

 Wise was the word the wise man spake, who said, "Angelo was the only man to whom God gave Four souls,"—the soul of sculpture and of song, Of architecture and of art; these all. For so God loved him, as if he were His only child, and grouped about those brows Ideals of Himself—not angels mild As those that flit and beckon other lives, But cherubim and seraphim; tall, strong, Unsleeping, terrible; with wings across Their mighty feet; and eyes—if we would look Upon their blazing eyes, these too are hid— Some angels are all wings! Oh, shine and fly! Were ye not angels, ye would strike us blind. 

 And yet they did not, could not dazzle her— That 

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