| |
| HE ended: and a kind of spell | |
| Upon the silent listeners fell. | |
| His solemn manner and his words | |
| Had touched the deep, mysterious chords | |
| That vibrate in each human breast | 5 |
| Alike, but not alike confessed. | |
| The spiritual world seemed near; | |
| And close above them, full of fear, | |
| Its awful adumbration passed, | |
| A luminous shadow, vague and vast. | 10 |
| They almost feared to look, lest there, | |
| Embodied from the impalpable air, | |
| They might behold the Angel stand, | |
| Holding the sword in his right hand. | |
| |
| At last, but in a voice subdued, | 15 |
| Not to disturb their dreamy mood, | |
| Said the sicilian: “While you spoke, | |
| Telling your legend marvellous, | |
| Suddenly in my memory woke | |
| The thought of one, now gone from us,— | 20 |
| An old Abate, meek and mild, | |
| My friend and teacher, when a child, | |
| Who sometimes in those days of old | |
| The legend of an Angel told, | |
| Which ran, as I remember thus.” | 25 |
| |
