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| I PAUSED beside the cabin door and saw the King of Kings at play, | |
| Tumbled upon the grass I spied the little heavenly runaway. | |
| The mother laughed upon the child made gay by its ecstatic morn, | |
| And yet the sages spake of It as of the Ancient and Unborn. | |
| I heard the passion breathed amid the honeysuckle scented glade, | 5 |
| And saw the King pass lightly from the beauty that he had betrayed. | |
| I saw him pass from love to love; and yet the pure allowed His claim | |
| To be the purest of the pure, thrice holy, stainless, without blame. | |
| I saw the open tavern door flash on the dusk a ruddy glare, | |
| And saw the King of Kings outcast reel brawling through the starlit air. | 10 |
| And yet He is the Prince of Peace of whom the ancient wisdom tells, | |
| And by their silence men adore the lovely silence where He dwells. | |
| I saw the King of Kings again, a thing to shudder at and fear, | |
| A form so darkened and so marred that childhood fled if it drew near. | |
| And yet He is the Light of Lights whose blossoming is Paradise, | 15 |
| That Beauty of the King which dawns upon the seers’ enraptured eyes. | |
| I saw the King of Kings again, a miser with a heart grown cold, | |
| And yet He is the Prodigal, the Spendthrift of the Heavenly Gold, | |
| The largesse of whose glory crowns the blazing brows of cherubim, | |
| And sun and moon and stars and flowers are jewels scattered forth by Him. | 20 |
| I saw the King of Kings descend the narrow doorway to the dust | |
| With all his fires of morning still, the beauty, bravery, and lust. | |
| And yet He is the life within the Ever-living Living Ones, | |
| The ancient with eternal youth, the cradle of the infant suns, | |
| The fiery fountain of the stars, and He the golden urn where all | 25 |
| The glittering spray of planets in their myriad beauty fall. | |
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