I loved illustrious cities and the crowds
That eddy through their incandescent nights.
I loved remote horizons with far clouds
Girdled, and fringed about with snowy heights.
I loved fair women, their sweet, conscious ways
Of wearing among hands that covet and plead
The rose ablossom at the rainbow's base
That bounds the world's desire and all its need.
Nature I worshipped, whose fecundity
Embraces every vision the most fair,
Of perfect benediction. From a boy
I gloated on existence. Earth to me

(The poem shows the Master, with his work done, singing to free his heart in Heaven.)


I heard Immanuel singing
Within his own good lands,
I saw him bend above his harp.
I watched his wandering hands
Lost amid the harp-strings;
Sweet, sweet I heard him play.
His wounds were altogether healed.
Old things had passed away.

All things were new, but music.
The blood of David ran
Within the Son of David,
Our God, the Son of Man.
He was ruddy like a shepherd.
His bold young face, how fair.

His heart to me, was a place of palaces and pinnacles and shining towers;
I saw it then as we see things in dreams,--I do not remember how long I slept;
I remember the tress, and the high, white walls, and how the sun was always on the
towers;
The walls are standing to-day, and the gates; I have been through the gates, I have
groped, I have crept
Back, back. There is dust in the streets, and blood; they are empty; darkness is over
them;
His heart is a place with the lights gone out, forsaken by great winds and the heavenly
rain, unclean and unswept,

I have become very hairy all over my body.
I'm afraid they'll start hunting me because of my fur.

My multicolored shirt has no meaning of love --
it looks like an air photo of a railway station.

At night my body is open and awake under the blanket,
like eyes under the blindfold of someone to be shot.

Restless I shall wander about;
hungry for life I'll die.

Yet I wanted to be calm, like a mound with all its cities destroyed,
and tranquil, like a full cemetery.

I DREAM'D in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the
whole of the rest of the earth;
I dream'd that was the new City of Friends;
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love--it led the
rest;
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
And in all their looks and words.

I am, O Anxious One. Don't you hear my voice
surging forth with all my earthly feelings?
They yearn so high, that they have sprouted wings
and whitely fly in circles round your face.
My soul, dressed in silence, rises up
and stands alone before you: can't you see?
don't you know that my prayer is growing ripe
upon your vision as upon a tree?
If you are the dreamer, I am what you dream.
But when you want to wake, I am your wish,
and I grow strong with all magnificence
and turn myself into a star's vast silence

The nativity of Christ.

Luke 1:30ff; 2:10ff

Behold, the grace appears!
The promise is fulfilled;
Mary, the wondrous virgin, bears,
And Jesus is the child.

[The Lord, the highest God,
Calls him his only Son;
He bids him rule the lands abroad,
And gives him David's throne.

O'er Jacob shall he reign
With a peculiar sway;
The nations shall his grace obtain,
His kingdom ne'er decay.]

To bring the glorious news
A heav'nly form appears;
He tells the shepherds of their joys,
And banishes their fears.

The ruin of the Antichrist.

Isa. 63:4-7.

"I lift my banner," saith the Lord,
"Where Antichrist has stood;
The city of my gospel foes
Shall be a field of blood.

"My heart has studied just revenge,
And now the day appears;
The day of my redeemed is come
To wipe away their tears.

"Quite weary is my patience grown,
And bids my fury go;
Swift as the lightning it shall move,
And be as fatal too.

"I call for helpers, but in vain;
Then has my gospel none?
Well, mine own arm has might enough

Sinai and Zion.

Heb. 12:18ff

Not to the terrors of the Lord,
The tempest, fire, and smoke;
Not to the thunder of that word
Which God on Sinai spoke;

But we are come to Zion's hill,
The city of our God,
Where milder words declare his will,
And spread his love abroad.

Behold th' innumerable host
Of angels clothed in light!
Behold the spirits of the just,
Whose faith is turned to sight!

Behold the blest assembly there
Whose names are writ in heav'n!
And God, the Judge of all, declares

Faith of things unseen.

Heb. 11

Faith is the brightest evidence
Of things beyond our sight,
Breaks through the clouds of flesh and sense,
And dwells in heav'nly light.

It sets times past in present view,
Brings distant prospects home,
Of things a thousand years ago,
Or thousand years to come.

By faith we know the worlds were made
By God's almighty word;
Abram, to unknown countries led,
By faith obeyed the Lord.

He sought a city fair and high,
Built by th' eternal hands,