Rupert Brooke (1887–1915). Collected Poems. 1916.
I. 190519087. The Vision of the Archangels
S
Trod four archangels, clear against the unheeding sky,
Bearing, with quiet even steps, and great wings furled,
A little dingy coffin; where a child must lie,
It was so tiny. (Yet, you had fancied, God could never
Have bidden a child turn from the spring and the sunlight,
And shut him in that lonely shell, to drop for ever
Into the emptiness and silence, into the night.…)
Through unknown glooms, that frail black coffin—and therein God’s little pitiful Body lying, worn and thin, And curled up like some crumpled, lonely flowerpetal— Till it was no more visible; then turned again With sorrowful quiet faces downward to the plain.