Songs of the Cavaliers and Roundheads :: :: University of Virginia Library

Now is my building founded,
Complete to the crowning stone,
That sharp, keen top of the lance-like spire,
That rises tapering like a fire,
Where the noisy daw in his turn may build,
And call his nest his own.

For scarce the loudest note of the choir
Will reach that blue serene;
Yet his home will shake at the roar of the bell,
The soaring chants between;
O there he'll chatter, and feed, and sit,
Not caring for abbot or queen.

I've dug the crypt for darkness;
The aisle the red lights pave,
Without is the twilight cloister,
Here the sun-flooded nave,
And within is the choir for prayer and praise,
With its chapel for my grave.

278

They tell me I've jostled Christ aside
With my image and my tomb;
But may the angels blot my name
At the dreadful day of doom,
If I wished for praise—I love not praise
From king, or priest, or groom.

Yet 'tis a stately building,
And like a crystal wall
Rises the great west window—
A missal leaf that's all—
So says my sneering rival,
Who twits me from Saint Paul.

Last night I saw the angels,
Just like a flock of doves,
Come down to bless the building,
For God such temples loves—
A richer pile than Solomon's
Is this where dwell the doves.

I've cut no boastful legend—
The nun's walk underneath—
No shields to blaze with quenchless fire
In windows. Why then, s'death—
Why should they grudge me grave room,
The altar-floor beneath.

279

Have I not saints by dozens
Around the chapter room—
The twelve, the four, the martyrs,
And all to guard my tomb?—
With lines of singing angels
To rise through light and gloom?

Who says this pile of marble
Is vanity throughout?
Do not the crowned confessors
Guard all the porch about?
Then, as the viper lives to sting,
Let these, my mockers flout.

Yes, it is hard for thirty years
To hew and chip the stone—
To fix the rainbow in the glass—
To build the saints a throne;
And then for sneering monks to grudge
A grave within one's own.

It is a costly work of mine,
This prison-house of song,
With underneath the sainted dead,
Above, the angel throng,
And everywhere the shecinah
Of incense all day long.

280

Vibrate with music night and day,
Ye organ-pipes of gold;
Let the tall roof shake with the psalms
And voices manifold,
When the deep thunder of the bass
Shall echo strong and bold!

Then let the mass sound long and loud—
The psalm go echoing up—
Theirs be the liquor and the wine,
Be mine the graven cup—
Now I have thought the matter out
I can contented sup.