Classic Poem

Embedded deep in the unlovely walls
Of hovel and enclosure, pen and byre,
These lovely shards of the old abbey halls
And towers lay hidden:—
Statue and plinth and subtly planed lunette,
Rare capital, incomparable tomb,—
Lost like a sapphire caked in mire,
Or pearl shell-ridden.

Concealed they lay, oblivious of their doom,
While, star-like, generations rose and set,—
More like us men, perhaps, than we know yet,
Who, in a whorl of worlds whose vision chokes the breath,
Drowse on through time, mistaking life for death.

Then came a man with vision to divine
The treasures in the wall.
He drew them forth and built of them a shrine
Where all
Might play their destined part,
And each long-hidden shard of loveliness
Express,
With individual art,
The myriad oneness that is beauty's heart.

Now what great hand shall delve into the wall
That crusts our mortal frame's immortal mind,
And rear therefrom a shrine our God may call
The temple of mankind?