"Awash With Angels"

...On that same rooftop in New York, I brought up "The First Elegy," by Rainier Maria Rilke:

"For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying."

Bede responded with Love Calls Us to the Things of This World," by Richard Wilbur:

"The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
As false dawn.
Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.

Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,
Some are in smocks: but truly there they are."