POETRY: Sexagesima by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Yet Earth was very good in days of old,
And Earth is lovely still:
Still for the sacred flock she spreads the fold,
For Sion rears the hill.

Mother she is, and cradle of our race,
A depth where treasures lie,
The broad foundation of a holy place,
Man’s step to scale the sky.

She spreads the harvest-field which Angels reap,
And lo! the crop is white;
She spreads God’s Acre where the happy sleep
All night that is not night.

Earth may not pass till Heaven shall pass away,
Nor Heaven may be renewed
Except with Earth: and once more in that day
Earth shall be very good.