All Manner of Precious Stones

 •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 22
 
THERE it is fair,
Where thousand, thousand flames for ever
more
In God's high palace glow,
No more they light the dark and misty shore,
As long ago:
They burn, a crown of every radiant stone,
For ever and forever round the throne,
Christ's diadem.
Eternal lamps that never can be dim,
Fed by the golden oil that flows to them
For ever from the Heart whence flowed the
Blood, They shine with light of every precious gem,
Light of the joy of God.
Past, pain and sorrow, and all sighs and
tears,
All shadows and all stains,
The former things of all the ancient years,
And Christ remains.
All swallowed up in fullness of the joy
Where Jesus is—
For spirit, soul, and body, one employ,
To share His bliss.
There do the lips of babes tell forth His ways,
His wonders deep;
And sweet their song, and innocent their
praise,
For they have known but Heaven's unsullied days
And earth's short sleep,
To wake in everlasting gladness there,
Where all is fair.
G. T. S.