344 POEMS 
VESTIS ANGELICA 
[Set to music by Francis Boott, Esq.] 
It was a custom of the early English church for pious laymen 
to be carried in the hour of death to some monastery, that they 
might be clothed in the habit of the religious order, and might die 
amid the prayers of the brotherhood. The garment thus assumed 
was known as the Vestis Angelica. See MoRONI, Dizionario di 
Erudizione Storico-Ecclesiastica, ii. 78 ; xcvi. 212. 
O GATHER, gather! Stand 
Round her on either hand! 
O shining angel-band 
More pure than priest ! 
A garment white and whole 
Weave for this passing soul, 
Whose earthly joy and dole 
Have almost ceased. 
Weave it of mothers’ prayers, 
Of sacred thoughts and cares, 
Of peace beneath gray hairs, 
Of hallowed pain ; 
Weave it of vanished tears, 
Of childlike hopes and fears, 
Of joys, by saintly years 
Washed free from stain. 
Weave it of happy hours, 
Of smiles and summer flowers, 
