675. Are they not all Ministering Spirits?

Robert Stephen Hawker. 1804-1875


WE see them not--we cannot hear
  The music of their wing--
Yet know we that they sojourn near,
  The Angels of the spring!

They glide along this lovely ground
  When the first violet grows;
Their graceful hands have just unbound
  The zone of yonder rose.

I gather it for thy dear breast,
  From stain and shadow free:
That which an Angel's touch hath blest
  Is meet, my love, for thee!

The Oxford Book of English Verse, HTML edition