The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder :: :: University of Virginia Library

361

A TEMPLE OF ART

WRITTEN FOR THE OPENING OF THE ALBRIGHT ART GALLERY, BUFFALO, MAY 31, 1905

I

Slowly to the day the rose,
The moon-flower suddenly to the night,
Their mysteries of light
In innocence unclose.

II

In this garden of delight,
This pillared temple, pure and white,
We plant the seed of art,
With mystic power
To bring, or sudden or slow, the perfect flower,
That cheers and comforts the sad human heart;
That brings to man high thought
From starry regions caught,
And sweet, unconscious nobleness of deed;
So he may never lose his childhood's joyful creed,
While years and sorrows to sorrows and years succeed.

III

Tho' thick the cloud that hides the unseen life
Before we were and after we shall be,
Here in this fragment of eternity;
And heavy is the burden and the strife—
The universe, we know, in beauty had its birth;
The day in beauty dawns, in beauty dies,
With intense color of the sea and skies;
And life, for all its rapine, with beauty floods the earth.
Lovely the birds, and their true song,
Amid the murmurous leaves, the summer long.

362

Whate'er the baffling power
Sent anger and earthquake and a thousand ills,
It made the violet flower,
And the wide world with breathless beauty thrills.

IV

Who built the world made man
With power to build and plan,
A soul all loveliness to love,
Blossom below and lucent blue above,
And new unending beauty to contrive.
He, the creature, may not make
Beautiful beings all alive—
Irised moth nor mottled snake,
The lily's splendor,
The light of glances infinitely tender,
Nor the day's dying glow nor flush of morn,
And yet his handiwork the angels shall not scorn,
When he hath wrought in truth and by Heaven's law,
In lowliness and awe.
Bravely shall he labor, while from his pure hands
Spring fresh wonders, spread new lands;
Son of God, no longer child of fate,
Like God he shall create.

V

When, weary ages hence, this wrong world is set right;
When brotherhood is real
And all that justice can for man is done;
When the fair, fleeing, anguished-for ideal
Turns actual at last; and 'neath the sun
Man hath no human foe;
And even the brazen sky, and storms that blow,
And all the elements have friendlier proved,

363

By human wit to human uses moved—
Ah, still shall art endure,
And beauty's light and lure,
To keep man noble, and make life delight,
Tho' shadows backward fall from the engulfing night.

VI

In a world of little aims,
Sordid hopes and futile fames,
Spirit of Beauty! high thy place
In the fashioning of the race.
In this temple, built to thee,
We thy worshipers would be,
Lifting up, all undefiled,
Hearts as lowly as a child;
Humble to be taught and led
And on celestial manna fed;
So to take into our lives
Something that from Heaven derives.