Without a glance turned on the aghast abyss
Of thought, nor ever hearkening
To the appalling roaring of the waters
Risen in flood beneath the piers of day.
The ruth and pity of a million years
Spoke in my heart. I knew the voice was God
Articulate in the handiwork of man
Refined by time, whereby the Duomo globe,
The Giotto apparition, and the spears
Of thought that rose around me, seemed to rise
Out of the heart's core of humanity
Anonymously speaking from the dead,
Creative in its travail and divine
And bearing witness to its ground in God.
The myriads groping through the restricted course
Of their swift days, and each one baited on
Each in his place by life's sufficient lures
To lift the load of days and in hot blood
To meet the knives of life insensible
Through passion, found about these stones
That lie to-day in ruins, those same faiths
And loyalties which won their hearts to toil,
To strife, and so to life. Unconsciously
Building according to their thirst for life
They gave to God Himself a voice in clay
Which still speaks to us though the builders sleep.
No less the eternal spirit lures us on
Through baits commensurate with our little souls,
Objects but little nobler than the fees
And guerdons of the battle-games of old,
Yet 'round which that within the heart of man
Which is divine casts glamour not of earth,
To self-creation in the toils of action
And to the praise of God in self-abandon.
From our unconscious deed when we are gone
And others like us for a thousand years,
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