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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  Paradisi Gloria

C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Paradisi Gloria

By Thomas William Parsons (1819–1892)

  • “O frate mio! ciascuna e cittadina
  • D’una vera città—”

  • THERE is a city, builded by no hand,

    And unapproachable by sea or shore,

    And unassailable by any band

    Of storming soldiery for evermore.

    There we no longer shall divide our time

    By acts or pleasures,—doing petty things

    Of work or warfare, merchandise or rhyme;

    But we shall sit beside the silver springs

    That flow from God’s own footstool, and behold

    Sages and martyrs, and those blessed few

    Who loved us once and were beloved of old,

    To dwell with them and walk with them anew,

    In alternations of sublime repose,

    Musical motion, the perpetual play

    Of every faculty that Heaven bestows,

    Through the bright, busy, and eternal day.