Of Such Is The Kingdom Of Heaven
“Of such is the kingdom of heaven”:
No glory that ever was shed
From the crowning star of the seven
That crown the north world’s head,
No word that ever was spoken
Of human or godlike tongue,
Gave ever such godlike token
Since human harps were strung.
No sign that ever was given
To faithful or faithless eyes,
Showed ever beyond clouds riven
So clear a Paradise.
Earth’s creeds may be seventy times seven,
And blood have defiled each creed:
If of such be the kingdom of heaven,
It must be heaven indeed.
—A. C. Swinburne.
The Here And The Hereafter
O yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;
That nothing walks with aimless feet,
That not one life shall be destroy’d,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;
That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivell’d in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another’s gain.
Behold, we know not anything.
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last—far off—at last to all,
And every Winter change to Spring.
Alfred Tennyson.
Alternate Reading: I Kings 19:1-14.