The Remarkable Experience of Stephen H. Bradley of the Power of the Holy Spirit on the Second Evening of November, 1829.

After the wild revival in the nave
I went home feeling stupid since the rest
had got it. Why was I no good to save?
My brain was grasping like an atheist:

how can you know one climbed out of a tomb
and all the dead will wake as if they’d slept?
“You back?” came probing from my brother’s room.
I lay down on my bed to sleep, except

my heart beat very quickly of a sudden,
and warmth from somewhere, like a stranger’s breath,
breached me. Divinity had poured its flood in
to float me high above the fear of death.

I lit a lamp to look on my excitement:
what mad shadows were fluttering about!
The many dizzy angels on that night meant
love and forever and goodbye to doubt.

Though groaning like a person in distress
(my brother asked me if I’d cracked a tooth),
I’d never felt such perfect happiness.
I feel it now, too, having told the truth.

—Aaron Poochigian