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THE THEOTEKTONES.
Delay me not, nor ban me, as I build—Who work for nothing less than for all time,
As one (though most unworthy) of the Guild
And goodly craftsmen sealed through every clime,
The separate holy Makers. We are few
But strong and steadfast, and our work is one;
To fashion Him we name with awed dim breath,
Heart of our life and hidden Soul of death
With sweetest loveliest things, the fire and dew
And thought that into deed could not be done
But yet is vaster; thus to lift Him high,
Embodied in our prayer and praise, and clothed
With dazzling terror bitted and brought nigh
As to a natural consuetude of calm,
Among rich bounties in their region blest.
To this we labour, plucking out of storm
The beautiful dear bosom of white rest,
And rapture bred of sorrow and betrothed
To silence. From the passion of the palm,
Which out of ashes climbs to fairer form
We borrow bloom and resurrection dress,
With shyness of the evening shadows draped,
And by the touch of tears and magic shaped
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For He, of whom we speak with reverent song,
Hath for the world no outwardness of aim
Nor might nor meaning, till the arms that can
Externalize (if by imperfect plan)
The Truth with which the earth has travailed long,
And cast in statued strength its righteous claim;
Or paint by pictures of unfading hue
Guesses of one that flowers in rose and rue.
There is no God for men, unless we make
Him breathe and move and burn beneath the glow
Of urgent hands, that kindle and compel
To visible and varied substance. We
Conflict with giant forces that rebel
Idly, and earthquake shocks arise and shake
Not the clear purpose in its tidal flow,
To set the Prisoner of the Ages free
For act and utterance. Taught in different schools
The same grand lesson, we are only tools
To raise the lid which coffins as with doubt
The jewel swathed in sweetest mystery
And noontide night of old Eternity,
Till art unriddling lets the secret out.
So we Theourgoi toil and watch and weep,
Each at his post and with anointed part
In every land and time, to body Him
Who but for us would in eternal sleep
Lie as a fountain frozen at the heart,
And never wake and overflow its brim.
We make Him live, the Beautiful, the Best,
And draw from secret wells the murmuring stream
Which winds about the bases of all things
And yields the sap by which they flower and fruit;
We upward raise, till it is manifest
And robed in radiance, the inspiring dream
Above these baubles and the vulgar bruit
Of animal pleasures and vain perishings,
The clue in clouds. The maskèd miracle,
Below the tricksy surface of our stage;
Implicit even in mire that splashes up
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A rainbowed wonder and a haunting hope;
We do reveal, and read the blotted page
Writ in the legend of the carven cup,
The ampler duty and abounding scope.
A thousand thousand veils are on the Light,
The luminous Darkness, many an ancient scroll
And mighty script of bard, or fearful fane
August, and periods like a weather vane
That left at least some promise in their flight;
And we, by solemn symbols, do unroll
Farther and farther the tremendous Truth
Which lends the Kosmos its perpetual youth.
O here and there and everywhere the Fact
Lurks, for the eyes that have a loftier look
And piece from fancy or phenomenon
Or broken words or antique vessel crackt,
Now measured pomp of some poetic book,
Now marvels in a pillared Parthenon;
And in them each a broader earth and sky,
With the dread Presence of Divinity.
Behold! ye that enjoy the Vision pure
If but a fragment of its vastness, how
The grandeur of the Ineffable is mixed
With melody in all our mortal stuff,
Immortal, and is the one gift secure;
That cannot be unfashioned or unfixed,
And chimes in answer to the changeless vow
Sweet balm as medicine to man's brute rebuff.
And we the Master Builders, south and north,
By scattered rays and gems converging still
And with the same white clear unswerving will
Create the God we darkly utter forth.
And generations yet unborn shall reap
Of the rich harvest which we may not taste
And riot in its glorious wealth, or waste
The golden ears and count the blessing cheap;
While children's children, entering in of right,
Do dwell beneath the Shadow that is Light.
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