A DIALOGUE.
"O 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."--
"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."--
"I do not hear them, I."--
"Joy to thee, Paradise,--
Garden and goal and nest!
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 forever from their face:
Untired in prayer
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
Our low estate nor scorned 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
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;
They shook and rose.
Hasten the time, O Lord, blot out their sin,
Let life begin."
Other Christina Rossetti songs:
all Christina Rossetti songs all songs from 1906