Nature and Civilization Reconciled
The ending is not a retreat to primitive Eden. Innocence without history becomes conscious communion after the whole drama of history. The final image includes architecture, jewels, gates, nations, kings, river, Tree, Bride, and Lamb. The Garden becomes a City: nature and civilization, wild life and conscious form, innocence and experience reconciled. This is the biblical ground of sacred civilization without nostalgia for a prehuman past.