Classic Poem

Out of this little and this nothingness
I will build slowly what cannot be effaced,
There shall come sound of iron hammers ringing
And groining arches like fingers interlaced;
Each youth a king who walks the common kingdom,
Clad in the seamless robe, with lifted head;
Each girl a queen, love's roses in her bosom,
Walking beside him with an equal tread.
I will set song upon the lips of singers
Who slumber still uncalled from out the dust,
I will light fires upon unnumbered altars,
Love shall be honest, justice shall be just.
I have not cried alone within the desert,
Ye go not out to find a broken reed;
I have clasped Him who walks the pillared darkness,
I have not wrestled with Him feeble-kneed.
About my loins I gird a sword that flashes
With lightnings hidden in the marching cloud;
I break above your heads the awful tablets,
And fling the fragments to the wheeling crowd.
Out of such sowing shall come mighty reaping,
Hearts are the fields, and songs the seed I sow:
Ye shall not know until the time of reaping
What hand upheld me, but I know, I know!