Poems 48: Ode to Billy Blake

and I thought that I had dreamt me as a dream in which I stood upon a great shore
and yet was stood above it, and then above the sea, and yet below it, and I saw
a doorway in the sea and to it was joined a gateway in the sky, and there was
with the air a wondrous calm the like of which I had never before known, and I was
in the calm and the calm was in me and there was nothing outside, and all around
was a light wrought of silver and gold, and the light held all things and covered
the land as a shining raiment, and I was in the light and the light was in me, and
there was nothing outside, and all was and had its being in the light and in my heart
was a joy in excess, beyond description, so much that I would have me dance
and sing, and there was for all things one heart and one joy, one dance and one song
a mighty song that rolled across the land, and in which all creation sang, and there
was nothing outside, and in my heart was a love beyond knowledge, and I wept
at this, for at last was my soul sure of many things, and as my tears fell the became
pools of deep reflection, in which I saw all the heavans in brighr array, suns and
moons in coubtless number and stars patterned in endless sequence and even
yet beyond this was a depth past sight and recognition, and from this was my head
then raised, my arms stretched forth an my hands opened to the sky, and I saw
that in my left hand I held the city of Jerusalem, and in my right hand a sparrow
and in my heart I cared more for the right hand than the left, and I was glad,
and so looking I beheld the sparrow in my eye and he in turn so looking beheld me
in his eye and we were glad to be so looking, and together we beheld Jerusalem
and did watch the city grow until it filled all of the earth and all of the sky and there
was nothing outside, and my heart was glad for there in its streets we did walk
and were counted as one.