Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
By Sonnets. St. John at Patmos. III. “But ere heaven’s cressets burn”William Alexander (1824–1911)
B
The Master comes. And as a man, all night
Lull’d in a room full fronting ocean’s might,
First waking sees a whiteness on his pane,
A little dawning whiteness, then again
A little line insufferably bright
Edging the ripples, orbing on outright
Until the glory he may scarce sustain;
And as a mighty city far-off kenn’d
Although the same, from each new height and glen
Looks strangely different to the merchantmen,
Who in long files towards its ramparts wend;—
So to St. John’s deep meditative eye,
That Nature grew to God’s own majesty.