Christian And Jew - 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.'