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1902
WHEN I was King and a Mason—a Master proven and skilled— | |
| I cleared me ground for a Palace such as a King should build. | |
| I decreed and dug down to my levels. Presently, under the silt, | |
| I came on the wreck of a Palace such as a King had built. | |
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| There was no worth in the fashion—there was no wit in the plan— | 5 |
| Hither and thither, aimless, the ruined footings ran— | |
| Masonry, brute, mishandled, but carven on every stone: | |
| “After me cometh a Builder. Tell him, I too have known.” | |
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| Swift to my use in my trenches, where my well-planned ground-works grew, | |
| I tumbled his quoins and his ashlars, and cut and reset them anew. | 10 |
| Lime I milled of his marbles; burned it, slacked it, and spread; | |
| Taking and leaving at pleasure the gifts of the humble dead. | |
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| Yet I despised not nor gloried; yet, as we wrenched them apart, | |
| I read in the razed foundations the heart of that builder’s heart. | |
| As he had risen and pleaded, so did I understand | 15 |
| The form of the dream he had followed in the face of the thing he had planned. * * * * * | |
| When I was a King and a Mason—in the open noon of my pride, | |
| They sent me a Word from the Darkness—They whispered and called me aside. | |
| They said—“The end is forbidden.” They said—“Thy use is fulfilled. | |
| “Thy Palace shall stand as that other’s—the spoil of a King who shall build.” | 20 |
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| I called my men from my trenches, my quarries, my wharves, and my sheers. | |
| All I had wrought I abandoned to the faith of the faithless years. | |
| Only I cut on the timber—only I carved on the stone: | |
| “After me cometh a Builder. Tell him, I too have known!” | |
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