When wickedness is broken as a tree

When wickedness is broken as a tree
Paradise comes to light, ah holy land!
Whence death has vanished like a shifting sand,
And barrenness is banished with the sea.
Its bulwarks are salvation fully manned,
All gems it hath for glad variety,
And pearls for pureness radiant glimmeringly,
And gold for grandeur where all good is grand.
An inner ring of saints meets linked above,
And linked of angels is an outer ring;
For voice of waters or for thunders’ voice
Lo! harps and songs wherewith all saints rejoice,
And all the trembling there of any string
Is but a trembling of enraptured love.