Page:The Campaner thal, and other writings.djvu/383



THE DEATH OF AN ANGEL.

HE tenderest and kindest angel, the Angel of the last hour, whom we harshly call Death, is sent to us, that he may mildly and gently pluck away the sinking heart of man from life, and bear it unhurt in his warm hands out of the cold breast into high, warming Eden. His brother is the Angel of the first hour, who twice kisses man,—once when he begins this life; and again, when he awakes on high, without wounds, and enters smiling upon the other life, as he came weeping into this.

As the Angel of the last hour saw the battle-fields stretched before him, full of blood and tears, and drew the trembling souls away, his mild eyes melted, and he said: "Ah! I will once die like man, that I may enter into his last agony, and soothe it when I dissolve the ties of life!"

The boundless circle of angels, who love each other above, pressed around the sympathetic one, and promised their beloved to surround him with heavenly rays after the instant of his death; thereby he might know that death had been; and his brother, whose kiss opens our cold lips, as the morning light does the chill flowers, gently touched his forehead, and said: "When I kiss