Christian And Jew
by Christina Rossetti
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.
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.
--
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
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 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
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.
Source:
Goblin Market and Other PoemsCopyright 1865
Macmillan And Co.London and Cambridge