THE INEFFABLE ANGELS.

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And the Angel of the Lord appeared unto him and said: The Lord Is with thee, thou
mighty man of valour,—Judges 6:12.

THEY were the faces of angels which Angelico saw in his holy
visions, and which— regarding them as revelations—he never
would retouch when once they had been sketched in. Mr. Ruskin
describes "the angel-choirs of Angelico, with the flames on their
white foreheads, waving brighter as they move, and the sparkles
streaming from their purple wings, like the glitter of many suns
upon a sounding sea, listening, in the pauses of alternate song,
for the prolonging of the trumpet-blast and the answering of
psaltry and cymbal, from all the star shores of heaven." The
cloister walk of Florence was to Angelico "no penitential solitude,
but a possessed land of tender blessing, guarded from the
entrance of all but holiest sorrow." The little cell was one of
the houses of heaven prepared for him by his Master. Was He
not always with him? Under every cypress avenue the angels
walked. He had seen their white robes, whiter than the dawn,
at his bedside, as he awoke in early summer. They had sung with
him, one on each side, when his voice failed for joy at sweet vesper
and matin time ; his eyes were blinded by their wings in the sunset,
when it sank behind the hills of Luni.      —Farrar.

The simple monk worked out his own ideal—
And were there ever forms more heavenly fair?
Nay! from the life the ineffable angels there
Seem limned and colored by their servant leal.
What was the charm? Whence the inflowing grace?
The beauty of holiness! His child-soul dreamed
Where psalm and censer filled the holy place,
Till to take place the mist the music seemed.
                                          —Anonymous.

And Angelico
The artist-saint kept smiling in his cell
The smile with which he welcomed the sweet, slow
Inbreak of angels (whitening through the dim
That he might paint them).
                           —Elizabeth Barret Browning.

What glimpse of heaven holdst thou, artist saint?
What harmonies sublime fell on thy soul,
What secret raptures o'er thy spirit stole
And purified thee from all earthly taint?
Did not the heavens ope, the world grow faint,
And all the spheres before thy vision roll,
Till then beheldst the ransomed pure and whole,
And with their sons celestial were acquaint?
Surely thou troddest where the angels tread,
And heard the echoes of God's sacred aisle,
Ere thou couldst paint the radiance round each head,
The faces beaming with celestial smile,
The angel-forms, by which our hearts are led
To that far home they have but left erewhile.
                                      —Norley Chester.