I Heard Immanuel Singing

(The poem shows the Master, with his work done, singing to free his heart in Heaven.)

This poem is intended to be half said, half sung, very softly, to the well-known tune: -

"Last night I lay a-sleeping,

There came a dream so fair,

I stood in Old Jerusalem

Beside the temple there, - " etc.

Yet this tune is not to be fitted on, arbitrarily.    It is here given to suggest the manner of handling rather than determine it.

# To be sung. #

I heard Immanuel singing

Within his own good lands,

I saw him bend above his harp.

I watched his wandering hands

Lost amid the harp-strings;

Sweet, sweet I heard him play.

His wounds were altogether healed.

Old things had passed away.

All things were new, but music.

The blood of David ran

Within the Son of David,

Our God, the Son of Man.

He was ruddy like a shepherd.

His bold young face, how fair.

Apollo of the silver bow

Had not such flowing hair.

# To be read very softly, but in spirited response. #

I saw Immanuel singing

On a tree-girdled hill.

The glad remembering branches

Dimly echoed still

The grand new song proclaiming

The Lamb that had been slain.

New-built, the Holy City

Gleamed in the murmuring plain.

The crowning hours were over.

The pageants all were past.

Within the many mansions

The hosts, grown still at last,

In homes of holy mystery

Slept long by crooning springs

Or waked to peaceful glory,

A universe of Kings.

# To be sung. #

He left his people happy.

He wandered free to sigh

Alone in lowly friendship

With the green grass and the sky.

He murmured ancient music

His red heart burned to sing

Because his perfect conquest

Had grown a weary thing.

No chant of gilded triumph -

His lonely song was made

Of Art's deliberate freedom;

Of minor chords arrayed

In soft and shadowy colors

That once were radiant flowers: -

The Rose of Sharon, bleeding

In Olive-shadowed bowers: -

And all the other roses

In the songs of East and West

Of love and war and worshipping,

And every shield and crest

Of thistle or of lotus

Or sacred lily wrought

In creeds and psalms and palaces

And temples of white thought: -

# To be read very softly, yet in spirited response. #

All these he sang, half-smiling

And weeping as he smiled,

Laughing, talking to his harp

As to a new-born child: -

As though the arts forgotten

But bloomed to prophecy

These careless, fearless harp-strings,

New-crying in the sky.

# To be sung. #

"When this his hour of sorrow

For flowers and Arts of men

Has passed in ghostly music,"

I asked my wild heart then -

What will he sing to-morrow,

What wonder, all his own

Alone, set free, rejoicing,

With a green hill for his throne?

What will he sing to-morrow

What wonder all his own

Alone, set free, rejoicing,

With a green hill for his throne?