Page:The Campaner thal, and other writings.djvu/385

 In the evening, the earthly strength of the Angel declined, and a crushing globe seemed to revolve about his head. Then Sleep sent his messengers. Images of the mind shifted out of the sunshine into a misty fire; the shadows of the day were thrown upon his brain; they came confused, and colossal, one upon another, and the world of sense reared itself uncontrolled and poured in upon him. Then Dream sent his messengers. Finally the funereal veil of Sleep wrapped itself thickly about him, and, sunk in the vault of night, he lay there lonely and motionless, like us poor mortals. But then, thou, heavenly Dream! didst descend, with thy thousand reflecting-glasses before his soul, and didst show in all of them a circle of angels and a radiant heaven; and the earthly body seemed to fall away from him with all its thorns. "Ah!" said he, in vain rapture, "my sleep was also my death." Yet when he awoke again, with his compressed heart full of heavy human blood, and looked out upon the earth and upon the night, he cried, "I saw the angels and the starry heavens; but it was only the image of Death, and not his presence."

The Betrothed of the translated hero did not mark that an angel only dwelt in the breast of her beloved; yet she loved the purified aspect of the wounded soul, and still gladly held the hand of him who had past so far away. But the Angel loved her deceived heart with the love of a man's soul in return; jealous of his own nature, he wished that he might not die before her, but love her so long that she might forgive him, when they met again in heaven, for having clasped together upon her breast an angel and a lover. Yet she died sooner; the late sorrow had bowed the head of this flower too low, and it lay broken upon the grave. She sank before the weeping Angel, not