Classic Poem

Each fane we build is part of God's great thought,
One stone in His rare temple thundered down
In some old wreck of wisdom's past renown.
So we rebuild, in each gold hour rebought
From life's dread waste of folly foiled and fraught,
With falsity, where in her tinsel crown
Philistia's Queen doth laugh all effort down,
While Nature's eremites toil and heed her not.

So we rebuild, till, in some afterday,
'Mid dreams confused this temple rears its dome,
To point to men a fairer, gladder way,
To ease earth's being down to its long home,
And make life greater for those weary men
Who toil in trade's mad mart or care's grim fen.