Classic Poem

In the palace of our Lord
Wise and lovely things lay stored,
Deeply hidden, fenced about:
God made man to search them out.
There, held safe from age to age,
Slept the goodly heritage.

Soul was given him for a key
To unlock the mystery;
Heart for courage, eyes for sight,
Hands to handle it aright:
Through the fastened gates the prize
Gleamed like peeps of Paradise.

There, to bless his future need,
Man beheld new forms of speed,
Wondrous shapes in stone and steel,
Cube, and curb, and banded wheel,—
Steeds with fiery breath that run
Clad in traces of the sun:

Saw thick darkness change to light,
Feet up-mount equipped for flight,
Heaviest mass a lifted load,
And the world an open road,
Linking up from end to end
Man with fellow-man his friend.

In that vision blest his eyes
Watched the coming Paradise,—
City walls, whose upward span,
Statured to the scale of man,
Sheltered, amid streets of gold,
Fruits and fountains manifold.

So, for that far-distant day,
Sleep and sloth he put away;
For the gain of that great spoil
Body and brain gave up to toil;
In the palace of his Lord
Searched and traced, and found reward.

Delving amid reefs and rocks,
He unloosed the magic locks;—
Wealth in mine and mountain stored,
Powers from deep waters poured,
One by one, with eager brain,
These he picked and made his gain.

Thus, with toil from age to age
Man brought home his heritage;
Wheresoe'er his shafts he drave,
Under wood, or wind, or wave,
Thence with ministry of might
Sprang new forms of life and light.

And of what his toil set free
Now he holds the mastery:
Now to heart and hand and eyes
Comes possession of the prize;
Now, as Time unbinds the spell,
Opens—lo, the pit of Hell!

Through the sundered gates, behold,
Statured to the scale of man,
Shattered streets more red than gold,
Blood where once sweet waters ran!

Under cannon-guarded walls,
Maimed and bruised with bleeding breast,
Sisyphus his burden hauls
Up to heights that win no rest!

Scorched with fire, and scourged with steel,
Blindly into darkness hurled,
Mad Ixion spins his wheel
Round a desolated world.

Here the Tree of Life gives out
Sickness from a leprous root;
Tantalus his lips of drought
Strains toward a poisoned fruit.

Shrinks the fountain from its springs,
Vintage all lies dead and done;
Icarus has filched the wings,
Phaeton drives the sun!