I know the guffaw of a tempest,
The mirth of a blossom and bud—
But I laugh when I think of how Cuchulain laughed
At the crows with their bills in his blood.
The mother laughs low at her baby,
The bridegroom with joy in his bride—
And I think that Christ laughed when they Took Him
with staves
On the night before He died.
APOCALYPSE
"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away."—Apoc. xxi. I.
By Theodore Maynard
Shall summer wood where we have laughed our fill;
Shall all your grass so good to walk upon;
Each field that we have loved, each little hill,
Be burnt like paper—as hath said Saint John?
Then not alone they die! For God hath told
How all His plains of mingled fire and glass,
His walls of hyacinth, His streets of gold,
His aureoles of jewelled light shall pass,
That He may make us nobler things that these,
And in her royal robes of blazing red
Adorn His bride. Yea, with what mysteries
And might and mirth shall she be diamonded.
