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The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti

A variorum edition: Edited, with textual notes and introductions, by R. W. Crump

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“So great a cloud of Witnesses.”

I think of the saints I have known, and lift up mine eyes
To the far-away home of beautiful Paradise,
Where the song of saints gives voice to an undividing sea
On whose plain their feet stand firm while they keep their jubilee.
As the sound of waters their voice, as the sound of thunderings,
While they all at once rejoice, while all sing and while each one sings;
Where more saints flock in, and more, and yet more, and again yet more,
And not one turns back to depart thro' the open entrance-door.
O sights of our lovely earth, O sound of our earthly sea,
Speak to me of Paradise, of all blessed saints to me:
Or keep silence touching them, and speak to my heart alone
Of the Saint of saints, the King of kings, the Lamb on the Throne.