Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
By Digby Mackworth-Dolben (1848–1867)A Song of the New Jerusalem
| SING me the men ere this | |
| Who, to the gate that is | |
| A cloven pearl, uprapt, | |
| The big white bars between | |
| With dying eyes have seen | 5 |
| The sea of jasper, lapt | |
| About with crystal sheen. | |
| And all the far pleasance | |
| Where linkèd angels dance, | |
| With scarlet wings that fall | 10 |
| Magnifical, or spread | |
| Most sweetly overhead, | |
| In fashion musical | |
| Of cadenced lutes instead. | |
| Sing me the town they saw, | 15 |
| Withouten fleck or flaw; | |
| A flame, more fine than glass | |
| Of fair Abbayes the boast,— | |
| More glad than wax of cost | |
| Doth make at Candlemas | 20 |
| The Lifting of the Host. | |
| Where many Knights and Dames, | |
| With new and wondrous names, | |
| One great Laudate psalm | |
| Go singing down the street. | 25 |
| ’Tis peace upon their feet, | |
| In hand ’tis pilgrim palm | |
| Of Holy Land so sweet. | |
| Where Mother Mary walks | |
| ’Mid silver lily stalks, | 30 |
| Star-tirèd, moon-bedight: | |
| Where Cecily is seen, | |
| With Dorothy in green, | |
| And Magdalen all white, | |
| The maidens of the Queen. | 35 |
| Sing on—the steps untrod, | |
| The temple that is God— | |
| Where incense doth ascend, | |
| Where mount the cries and tears | |
| Of all the dolorous years, | 40 |
| With moan that ladies send | |
| Of durance and sore fears. | |
| And him who sitteth there, | |
| The Christ of purple hair, | |
| And great eyes, deep with ruth, | 45 |
| Who is, of all things fair, | |
| That shall be, or that were, | |
| The sum and very Truth. | |
| Then add a little prayer, | |
| That since all these be so, | 50 |
| Our Liege, who doth us know, | |
| Would ’fend from Sathanas, | |
| And bring us, of His grace | |
| To that His joyous place, | |
| So we the doom may pass | 55 |
| And see Him in the Face. | |