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dwgm~ Abou Ben Adhem ~
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An Angel writing in a book of gold:
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?" The Vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the Angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerily still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one who loves his fellow men."
The Angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest!
~.~
Leigh Hunt
From: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | Date: 2007
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
Leigh Hunt (James Henry Leigh Hunt) , 1784-1859, English poet, critic, and journalist. He was a friend of the eminent literary men of his time, and his home was the gathering place for such notable writers as Hazlitt , Lamb , Keats , and Shelley . With his brother John, Hunt established (1808) the Examiner, a liberal weekly to which he contributed political articles. Because of an outspoken article attacking the prince regent, the brothers were imprisoned from 1813 to 1815, but they continued to edit the journal from jail. In 1822, Hunt joined Shelley and Byron in Italy and launched the Liberal (1822-23), which proved a failure. During other periods Hunt contributed to the Indicator (1819-21), the Tatler (1830-32), and Leigh Hunt's London Journal (1834-35). His literary fame rests chiefly on his miscellaneous light essays, his lyrics Abou Ben Adhem and Jenny Kissed Me, and his witty and informative autobiography (1850). The Story of Rimini (1816), based on the love of Paolo and Francesca, is his only long poem of consequence. A noted dramatic and literary critic, he was one of the first to praise the genius of Shelley and Keats.
Bibliography: See L. H. and C. W. Houtchens, ed., Leigh Hunt's Dramatic Criticism (1949), Leigh Hunt's Literary Criticism (1956), and Leigh Hunt's Political and Occasional Essays (1962); biographies by E. Blunden (1930, repr. 1970), J. R. Thompson (1977), A. Blainey (1985), and A. Holden (2005).