The Angel of Death | Page 6

feel, with thrill,

That the _friend_ approaches,
To lead you homeward, where joys
excel,
United ever with Him to dwell.

When day be cooling, and shadows cover,
With sombre curtains,
your hills and dales,
Then, to release you, He near shall hover,

Whose power, great as his love, prevails.
The eye-lids, laded,
A while are closing, ...
The work-tools, jaded,

Benumbed reposing, ...
Another while--and a new career,
In
splendor, shall to your view appear!
And earth is new, as is heaven's portal;
The son of heaven and earth is
new,
And misses not, since become immortal,
The narrow
homestead, whence he withdrew.
It ceased existing,
It ceased attracting--
But faith persisting,
But
virtue acting!
You have, before you, the lot prepared,
By abject
spirits not seen or shared.
Then wiped away are all tears forever,
All wounds removed by the
healing hand....
Again, midst corpses and biers, I never,
With torch
inverted and quenched shall stand
In darkness rife;--
But, the torch upturning,
By flames of life
I
restore its burning--
And then, Seraphic, with you unite
In songs of
praise at the Throne of Light.
[Illustration]
BRIEF EXPLANATORY NOTES.
PAGE 17, last line; _i. e._--AIR, WATER, EARTH, FIRE, _the four
elements_, in which, according to the ancient philosophers, all exists,
and of which the whole world is composed.
PAGE 24, "ALEXANDERS" _i. e._--Such as Alexander III, "the
Great," king of Macedonia, etc., the greatest of Military Conquerors;
born 356 B. C.; died, 323 B. C.
"NEROS" _i. e._--Such as Nero, Lucius Domitius, Roman Emperor;

born 37; died 68; probably the most prominent type known of
wickedness and cruelty, and, nevertheless, a coward.
PAGE 27, "CREST AND FOIL;" emblematic of Knighthood or
Nobility.
PAGE 29, "BROTHER" "EQUAL," _i. e._--Neighbor, as exemplified
by Christ to the Lawyer; see Gospel, St. Luke, x. 25, _et. seq._ The
emphasized "_then_" on the second line refers to when "for its keeping
you shall account;" (see previous stanza, page 28) the sense of the two
first lines being: too late _then_ to mend evil deeds by charity.
PAGE 39, lines 3 and 4; see Swedish and General History; Three
champions of political and religious liberty; prominent in removing
excessive taxation, extending the rights, guarantees and educational
facilities of the people and undermining and finally crushing the
pernicious and immense power, wealth and influence of a corrupt and
arbitrary hierarchy.--
ENGELBREKT, an influential private citizen, went, on his own
responsibility, to demand of the then king (Erik XIII) amelioration in
the condition of the utterly enslaved, tax-ridden and tyranized people.
This being refused, he induced the people, under his leadership, to rise
in arms (in the fall of 1433) and, during three years of successive
victories, drove out of the country all foreign oppressors and their
adherents, put other men in their places, and enforced changes in the
government, and a reduction everywhere of 33 per cent. in the taxes.
He was murdered April 27th, 1436.
GUSTAVUS 1st, savior of the independence of Sweden, who gave it
new Constitution, new Laws, new Church-government, and was the
first to institute general education, by establishing public schools
throughout the country. He was born in 1496, and reigned from 1521 to
his death, 1560.
GUSTAVUS II, ADOLPHUS, born in 1592, Grandson of Gustavus 1st,
was king of Sweden from 1611 to his death 1632, when he fell in the
famous battle at Lützen, Germany, in the "thirty years war," while

fighting for the grand cause of liberty of conscience.
PAGE 41, "Uriah-note," see Bible, II Samuel, chapter XI.
PAGE 42, 1st line; see Bible, Genesis, chapter XXXVII.
PAGE 42, 2nd line; see Bible, II Samuel, chapter I.
PAGE 42, 5th line; see Bible, Jeremiah XXXI, verse 15; also, Gospel
of St. Matthew, chapter II, verse 18.
PAGE 45, 1st line; see Bible, Gospel of St. Luke, XX, 39.
PAGE 45, 3rd line; see Bible, St. John, XIX, 25.
PAGE 45, 5th line; see Bible, St. John, XIV, 13.
PAGE 50, 3rd line, see Bible, St. Mark, XIII, 13.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Angel of Death, by Johan
Olof Wallin
0. END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANGEL OF
DEATH ***
. This file should be named 20135-8.txt or 20135-8.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be
found in:
. http://www.gutenberg.net/2/0/1/3/20135/
Produced by Bryan Ness, Taavi Kalju and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced
from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print
project.)
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be
renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation

(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set
forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying
and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect