Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 3. OVER THE GREAT CITY, by EDWARD CARPENTER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 3. OVER THE GREAT CITY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Over the great city
Last Line: And other love is pain, but this is joy eternal.
Subject(s): Religion; Theology


OVER 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.





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