Thus Freedom Comes, Thus Peace

And I shall say to these: “You cannot traffick in peace, and you cannot quote it as priced in the Stock Exchange list. For Christ, (or whatever name is given to the secret kingdom of heaven, in which we are, and have this shadow of life, that shadow of the grave) to those who remain has said: ‘Leave the dead to bury the dead! Rich though they be, you cannot sell or buy their miracle, nor be enriched by it, nor in Jerusalem, sweet with the bugles blowing over them, set up your market place, and have increase--’ Not thus comes peace, nor freedom thus. But slowly, making more holy what is holy, from the guarded pool of the spirit swift, cold, and beautiful, in mists diaphanous his rain a god draws back again. And, as the sun builds with the clouds, of these he builds his city of peace-- those stoneless streets, at whose sweet end friend meets with friend, those star-hung towers, in which the light of the sun with the moon’s light is one, with love as visible and exquisite as the little lamps with which the yew is lit, (so luminously red in the translucent green of that deep air the lanterns of love are seen) and the music of meeting, and the trumpet at the gate sounding: ‘All ye, who enter here, abandon hate.’ Thus freedom comes, thus peace.” I shall say to these.