I came upon this poem again (in my post of 20 October 2014), by the matchless Emily Dickinson, and could not resist putting it up here. It has everything: mystery, beauty, and faith. We sometimes tend to see "the beauty of holiness" as "the holiness of beauty": let this small gem, where the two are in exact and perfect suspension, be a lesson to us.
The feet of people walking home
The feet of people walking home
With gayer sandals go ---
The Crocus --- till she rises,
The Vassal of the Snow —
The lips at Hallelujah!
Long years of practice bore,
Till bye and bye these Bargemen
Walked singing on the shore.
Pearls are the Diver’s farthings
Extorted from the Sea ---
Pinions --- the Seraph’s wagon
Pedestrian --- once, as we —
Night is the morning’s Canvas
Larceny –- legacy ---
Death, but our rapt attention
To Immortality.
My figures fail to tell me
How far the Village lies ---
Whose peasants are the Angels ---
Whose Cantons dot the skies ---
My Classics veil their faces ---
My Faith that Dark adores ---
Which from its solemn abbeys
Such resurrection pours.
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