How Many Heavens ...
The emeralds are singing on the grasses
And in the trees the bells of the long cold are ringing, --
My blood seems changed to emeralds like the spears
Of grass beneath the earth piercing and singing.
The flame of the first blade
Is an angel piercing through the earth to sing
"God is everything!
The grass within the grass, the angel in the angel, flame
Within the flame, and He is the green shade that came
To be the heart of shade."
The grey-beard angel of the stone,
Who has grown wise with age, cried "Not alone
Am I within my silence"... then, above the glade
The yellow straws of light
Whereof the sun has built his nest, cry "Bright
Is the world, the yellow straw
My brother, -- God is the straw within the straw: -- All
things are Light."
He is the sea of ripeness and the sweet apple's emerald lore.
So you my flame of grass, my root of the world from
which all Spring shall grow,
Or you, my hawthorn bough of the stars, now leaning low
Through the day, for your flowers to kiss my lips,
shall know
He is the core of the heart of love, and He, beyond
labouring seas, our ultimate shore.
~Dame Edith Sitwell
