A Note from the Poet to the Reader

Dear reader,

The verse that first stirred these lines is brief yet inexhaustible: “The city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof” (Revelation 21:23).

In that single declaration the whole drama of redemption is gathered into one image. Light in Scripture is never mere illumination; it is joy that cannot be taken away, beauty that does not fade, knowledge that heals every mystery, and manifestation that finally reveals what grace has been making all along. And every one of these is found not in an abstract radiance but in a Person—the Lamb who was slain and is now exalted.

The joy of the redeemed is nothing other than the finished work of Jesus: chosen before the foundation of the world, loved through the long night of our rebellion, purchased with blood, washed, clothed, kept, and at last glorified. The beauty of the saints is borrowed light only; they shine as planets catch the sun. The knowledge that will one day make every dark providence plain flows from Him who is Himself the Light. And the final transformation—when the poor and stained are made clear as crystal—comes by the touch of the same Lamb who once bore our sin.

I have tried to let these truths speak in images drawn from the text itself: the clusters of Eshcol, the sleeping sapphire, the central Sun, the wand of living flame. The poem is not an argument but a prolonged gaze—an attempt to stand, even for a few stanzas, in the light that needs no other source.

May the reading of it turn your own eyes toward the same Lamb, until the day when faith becomes sight and we see Him in His own light, the King of kings and Lord of lords.

—The Poet

No sun is needed in that deathless sphere,

nor moon to borrow light from distant fire;

the Lamb alone is day perpetual there,

and all the City kindles from His light.

His glory is the firmament, the air,

the living radiance none can ever tire.

Joy is not echo of a passing mirth,

but the deep vintage of His finished love:

He chose us long before the mountains rose,

He loved us through the night we could not prove,

He bought us with the winepress of His blood,

He washed us white as snow on highest peaks,

He clothed us in the linen of His grace,

He kept us through the storm and through the flood,

and crowned us now with uncreated light.

Each thought of Him is Eshcol’s clustered gold,

a sweetness earth has never yet controlled.

Beauty is nothing when His beam is gone.

The sapphire sleeps, the pearl forgets to shine;

we are but planets round that central Sun,

reflecting splendours that are wholly His.

Withdraw the Lamb, and every glory dies;

unveil Him, and the very heavens grow pale.

We live as rays that from His fullness rise,

and if He veil Himself, our light must fail.

Knowledge, once fractured, stands forever whole.

The dark of providence is pierced and known;

what once was riddle to the pilgrim soul

lies open in the light that is His own.

No half-seen sign, no shadowed mystery—

the Lamb Himself is Teacher, Book, and Key.

All that confounded us on earth’s dim stage

is radiant now upon the endless page,

and every heart, astonished, lifts its voice

to praise the God who turned our tears to joy.

Then comes the final, glorious unveiling.

Here we were hidden, poor, and marked with sin;

there His own love, a wand of living flame,

touches the dust and draws the glory in.

One finger’s brush, and wretchedness is gone—

we stand as crystal, radiant as the sun.

The beggar rises king; the stained are pure;

the night is past, the morning shall endure.

All this proceeds from Him who once was slain,

the exalted Lamb, the centre of the train.

Whatever splendour floods the jasper throne,

whatever song the countless hosts intone,

Jesus is soul and substance of it all—

the Light, the Life, the everlasting Call.

O to be present in that purest ray,

and see the King of kings in His own day!