Man wills to make of earth,
not one Jerusalem but two; this sacramental blood de-
clears the double mind by which he wills to lift both
lion and lamb beyond the killing to exchange unaccount-
able and vast.
Man's priestliness therefore
bespeaks his refusal of despair; proclaims acceptance of
a world which, by its murderous hand, subscribes the
insupportable dilemma of its being—the war of lion and
lamb having no other, likely outcome here than two im-
possibilities:
The one,
a pride of victors feeding on the slain; but leaving the
lion as he was before, trapped in ancient reciprocities by
which at last all power falls to crows;
And the other,
a hymn to despair no victim will accept; it is not enough,
in this paroxysm of two martyrdoms, to stand upon the ship-
wrecks of the slain and praise the weak for weakness; the
lamb's will, too, was life; he died refusing death.
Sacrifice therefore
Not written off, but recognized,
a sign in blood of the vaster end of blood; a redness
turning all things white; an impossibility prefiguring the
last exchange of all.

The old order, of course,
unchanged; the deaths of bulls and goats achieving
nothing; Aaron still ineffectual; creation still bloody;
But haunted now by bells within the veil
where Aaron walks in shadows sprinkling
blood and bids a new Jerusalem descend.
Endless smoke now rising
Lion become priest
And lamb victim
The world awaits
The unimaginable union
By which the Lion lifts Himself Lamb slain
And, Priest and Victim,
Brings
The City
Home.

Auteur: Robert Farrar Capon