Classic Poem

Lame from his birth; and who is not as much,
Though in his body he be stout and strong;
And in his mind an athlete for the truth;
In conscience, too, a giant against wrong?

For who that guesses what a man may be,
In all his powers and graces how divine,
And then bethinks him of the thing he is,—
So far below that glory, God, of thine,—

Though he were greatest of the sons of men,
“Why callest thou me good?” he still would say;
And all the heights already won would point
To higher peaks along the heavenly way.

Lame from our birth; and daily we are brought,
And at the gate called Beautiful are laid:
Sometimes its wonder makes us free and glad;
Sometimes its grandeur makes us half afraid.

The gate called Beautiful; and yet methinks
No word can name it that begins to tell
How soar its pillars to the highest heavens,
And how their roots take hold on lowest hell.

With what designs its panels are inwrought,
O'ertraced with flowers and hills and shining seas,
And glorified by rise and set of suns,
And Junes of blossom and October trees!

So beautiful, yet never quite the same!
The pictures change with every changing hour;
Or sweeter things come stealing into view,
Which stronger things had hidden by their power.

There all the stars and systems go their way;
There shines the moon so tender in her grace;
And there, than moon or star or sun more fair,
The blessed wonder of the human face.

Faces and faces! some of children sweet;
And some of maidens fresh and pure and true;
And some that lovelier are at evening time
Than any can be while the years are few.

This is the gate called Beautiful; it swings
To music sweeter than was heard that day
When St. Cecilia, rapt in ecstasy,
Heard through her trance the angelic roundelay.

Music of little children at their play;
Of mothers hushing them to sleep and dreams;
Of all the birds that sing in all the trees,
Of all the murmuring of all the streams.

And at this gate, not at wide intervals,
Are we, lame from our birth, laid tenderly,
But daily; and not one day passes by
And we look not upon this mystery.

Gate of the Temple? surely it is that!
It opens not into vacuity;
For all its beauty, it is not so fair
But that a greater beauty there can be.

Thy beauty, O my Father! All is Thine;
But there is beauty in Thyself, from whence
The beauty Thou hast made doth ever flow
In streams of never-failing affluence.

Thou art the Temple! and though I am lame,—
Lame from my birth, and shall be till I die,—
I enter through the gate called Beautiful,
And am alone with Thee, O Thou Most High!