Slowly up silent peaks, the white edge of the world, <br /> Trod four archangels, clear against the unheeding sky, <br />Bearing, with quiet even steps, and great wings furled, <br /> A little dingy coffin; where a child must lie, <br />It was so tiny. (Yet, you had fancied, God could never <br /> Have bidden a child turn from the spring and the sunlight, <br />And shut him in that lonely shell, to drop for ever <br /> Into the emptiness and silence, into the night. . . .) <br /> <br />They then from the sheer summit cast, and watched it fall, <br /> Through unknown glooms, that frail black coffin -- and therein <br /> God's little pitiful Body lying, worn and thin, <br />And curled up like some crumpled, lonely flower-petal -- <br />Till it was no more visible; then turned again <br />With sorrowful quiet faces downward to the plain.<br /><br />Rupert Brooke<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/vision-of-the-archangels-the/
