THE HEAVENLY CITY

City, when we see you coming down,Coming down from GodTo be the new world’s crown:How shall they sing, the fresh, unsalted seasHearing your harmonies!For there is no more death,No need to cure those waters, now, with any brine;Their shores give them no dead,Rivers no blood, no rot to stain them.Because the cruel algebra of warIs now no more.And the steel circle of time, inexorable,Bites like a padlock shut, forever,In the smoke of the last bomb:And in that trap the murderers and sorcerers and crooked leadersGo rolling home to hell.And history is done.Shine with your lamb-light, shine upon the world:You are the new creations sun.And standing on their twelve foundations,Lo, the twelve gates that are One Christ are wide as canticles:And Oh! Begin to hear the thunder of the songs within the crystal Towers,While all the saints rise from their earth with feet like likeAnd fly to tread the quick-gold of those streets,Oh, City, when we see you sailing down,Sailing down from God,Dressed in the glory of the Trinity, and angel-crownedIn nine white diadems of liturgy.~by Fr. Thomas Mertin in Selected Poems