Heaven in Earth

Consider this a follow-up to "Banana Ephiphany."

It took me forever to find the context of this oft-repeated line from one of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poems.

"Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries"

It comes from the seventh book of a long poem entitled, Aurora Leigh.

This excerpt is equally brilliant:

Why else do these things move him, leaf or stone?
The bird's not moved, that pecks at a spring-shoot;
Nor yet the horse, before a quarry, a-graze:
But man, the two-fold creature, apprehends
The two-fold manner, in and outwardly,
And nothing in the world comes single to him.

Browning saw what few of us could -- the other-worldly nature of common things. Perhaps because she spent her life so close to the grave, she was permitted a glimpse of the next world and its eternal quality.