I. THE GLASS-STAINERS

To every Man his Mystery,

A trade and only one:

The masons make the hives of men,

The domes of grey or dun,

But we have wrought in rose and gold

The houses of the sun.

The shipwrights build the houses high,

Whose green foundations sway

Alive with fish like little flames,

When the wind goes out to slay.

But we abide with painted sails

The cyclone of the day.

The weavers make the clothes of men

And coats for everyone;

They walk the streets like sunset clouds;

But we have woven and spun

In scarlet or in golden-green

The gay coats of the sun.

You whom the usurers and the lords

With insolent liveries trod,

Deep in dark church behold, above

Their lance-lengths by a rod,

Where we have blazed the tabard

Of the trumpeter of God.