Classic Poem

I will bring you great harps in Heaven,
Made of giant shells
From the jasper sea.
With a thousand burnt-up years behind,
What then of the gulf from you to me?
It will be but the width of a thread,
Or the narrowest leaf of our sheltering tree.

You dare not refuse my harps in Heaven.
Or angels will mock you, and turn away.
Or with angel wit,
Will praise your eyes,
And your pure Greek lips and bid you play,
And sing of the love from them to you,
And then of my poor flaming heart
In the far-off earth, when the years were new.

I will bring you such harps in Heaven
That they will shake at your touch and breath,
Whose threads are rainbows,
Seventy times seven,
Whose voice is life, and silence death.