| Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917. |
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| 198. Over the Great City |
| By Edward Carpenter (b. 1844) |
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| OVER the great city, | |
| Where the wind rustles through the parks and gardens, | |
| In the air, the high clouds brooding, | |
| In the lines of street perspective, the lamps, the traffic, | |
| The pavements and the innumerable feet upon them, | 5 |
| I Am: make no mistake—do not be deluded. | |
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| Think not because I do not appear at the first glance—because the centuries have gone by and there is no assured tidings of me—that therefore I am not there. | |
| Think not because all goes its own way that therefore I do not go my own way through all. | |
| The fixed bent of hurrying faces in the street—each turned towards its own light, seeing no other—yet I am the Light towards which they all look. | |
| The toil of so many hands to such multifarious ends, yet my hand knows the touch and twining of them all. | 10 |
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| All come to me at last. | |
| There is no love like mine; | |
| For all other love takes one and not another; | |
| And other love is pain, but this is joy eternal. | |
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