The Builder

WHEN the deep cunning architect

Had the great minster planned,

They worked in faith for twice two hundred years

And reared the building grand;

War came and famine and they did not falter,

But held his line,

And filled the space divine

With carvings meet for the soul's eye;

And not alone the chantry and thereby

The snowy altar,

But in every part

They carved the minster after his own heart,

And made the humblest places fair,

Even the dimmest cloister-way and stair,

With vineyard tendrils,

With ocean-seeming shells,

With filmy weeds from sea,

With bell-flowers delicate and bells,

All done minute with excellent tracery.

Come, O my soul,

And let me build thee like the minster fair,

Deep based and large as air,

And full of hidden graces wrought

In faith and infinite thought,

Till all thy dimmest ways,

Shall gleam with little vines and fruits of praise,

So that one day

The consummate Architect

Who planned the souls that we are set to build,

May pause and say:

How curiously wrought is this!

The builder followed well My thought, My chart,

And worked for Me, not for the world's wild heart;

Here are the outward virtues true!

But see how all the inner parts are filled

With singular bliss:

Set it aside

I shall come here again at eventide.