OVER THE GREAT CITY
by: Edward Carpenter (1844-1929)
- VER the great city,
- Where the wind rustles through the parks and gardens,
- In the air, the high clouds brooding,
- In the lines of street perspective, the lamps, the traffic,
- The pavements and the innumerable feet upon them,
- I Am: make no mistake--do not be deluded.
-
- Think not because I do not appear at the first glance--because
the centuries have gone by and there is no assured tidings of
me--that therefore I am not there.
- Think not because all goes its own way that therefore I do
not go my own way through all.
- The fixed bent of hurrying faces in the street--each turned
towards its own light, seeing no other--yet I am the Light towards
which they all look.
- The toil of so many hands to such multifarious ends, yet
my hand knows the touch and twining of them all.
-
- All come to me at last.
- There is no love like mine;
- For all other love takes one and not another;
- And other love is pain, but this is joy eternal.
"Over the Great City"
is reprinted from The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse.
Ed. Nicholson & Lee. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1917. |
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