---

James Russell Lowell - St. Michael The Weigher
Work rating: Low

Stood the tall Archangel weighing
All man`s dreaming, doing, saying,
All the failure and the pain,
All the triumph and the gain,
In the unimagined years,
Full of hopes, more full of tears,
Since old Adam`s hopeless eyes
Backward searched for Paradise,
And, instead, the flame-blade saw
Of inexorable Law.

Waking, I beheld him there,
With his fire-gold, flickering hair,
In his blinding armor stand,
And the scales were in his hand:
Mighty were they, and full well
They could poise both heaven and hell.
`Angel,` asked I humbly then,
`Weighest thou the souls of men?
That thine office is, I know.`
`Nay,` he answered me, `not so;
But I weigh the hope of Man
Since the power of choice began,
In the world, of good or ill.`
Then I waited and was still.

In one scale I saw him place
All the glories of our race,
Cups that lit Belsbazzar`s feast,
Gems, the lightning of the East,
Kublai`s sceptre, Caesar`s sword,
Many a poet`s golden word,
Many a skill of science, vain
To make men as gods again.

In the other scale he threw
Things regardless, outcast, few,
Martyr-ash, arena sand,
Of St Francis` cord a strand,
Beechen cups of men whose need
Fasted that the poor might feed,
Disillusions and despairs
Of young saints with, grief-grayed hairs,
Broken hearts that brake for Man.

Marvel through my pulses ran
Seeing then the beam divine
Swiftly on this hand decline,
While Earth`s splendor and renown
Mounted light as thistle-down.
Source
The script ran 0.001 seconds.