II. THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS

In the world's whitest morning

As hoary with hope,

The Builder of Bridges

Was priest and was pope:

And the mitre of mystery

And the canopy his,

Who darkened the chasms

And domed the abyss.

To eastward and westward

Spread wings at his word

The arch with the key-stone

That stoops like a bird;

That rides the wild air

And the daylight cast under;

The highway of danger,

The gateway of wonder.

Of his throne were the thunders

That rivet and fix

Wild weddings of strangers

That meet and not mix;

The town and the cornland;

The bride and the groom:

In the breaking of bridges

Is treason and doom.

But he bade us, who fashion

The road that can fly,

That we build not too heavy

And build not too high:

Seeing alway that under

The dark arch's bend

Shine death and white daylight

Unchanged to the end.

Who walk on his mercy

Walk light, as he saith,

Seeing that our life

Is a bridge above death;

And the world and its gardens

And hills, as ye heard,

Are born above space

On the wings of a bird.

Not high and not heavy

Is building of his:

When ye seal up the flood

And forget the abyss,

When your towers are uplifted,

Your banners unfurled,

In the breaking of bridges

Is the end of the world.