A DIALOGUE
'Oh happy happy land!
Angels like rushes stand
About the wells of light.'--
'Alas, I have not eyes for this fair sight:
Hold fast my hand.'--
'As in a soft wind, they
Bend all one blessed way,
Each bowed in his own glory, star with star.'--
'I cannot see so far,
Here shadows are.'-- 10
'White-winged the cherubim,
Yet whiter seraphim,
Glow white with intense fire of love.'--
'Mine eyes are dim:
I look in vain above,
And miss their hymn.'--
'Angels, Archangels cry
One to other ceaselessly
(I hear them sing)
One "Holy, Holy, Holy" to their King.'-- 20
'I do not hear them, I.'--
'At one side Paradise
Is curtained from the rest,
Made green for wearied eyes;
Much softer than the breast
Of mother-dove clad in a rainbow's dyes.
'All precious souls are there
Most safe, elect by grace,
All tears are wiped for ever from their face:
Untired in prayer 30
They wait and praise
Hidden for a little space.
'Boughs of the Living Vine
They spread in summer shine
Green leaf with leaf:
Sap of the Royal Vine it stirs like wine
In all both less and chief.
'Sing to the Lord,
All spirits of all flesh, sing;
For He hath not abhorred 40
Our low estate nor scorn'd our offering:
Shout to our King.'--
'But Zion said:
My Lord forgetteth me.
Lo, she hath made her bed
In dust; forsaken weepeth she
Where alien rivers swell the sea.
'She laid her body as the ground,
Her tender body as the ground to those
Who passed; her harpstrings cannot sound 50
In a strange land; discrowned
She sits, and drunk with woes.'--
'O drunken not with wine,
Whose sins and sorrows have fulfilled the sum,--
Be not afraid, arise, be no more dumb;
Arise, shine,
For thy light is come.'--
'Can these bones live?'--
'God knows:
The prophet saw such clothed with flesh and skin;
A wind blew on them and life entered in; 60
They shook and rose.
Hasten the time, O Lord, blot out their sin,
Let life begin.'
