THE HOUSE

There is no architect

Can build as the Muse can;

She is skilful to select

Materials for her plan;

Slow and warily to choose

Rafters of immortal pine,

Or cedar incorruptible,

Worthy her design,

She threads dark Alpine forests

Or valleys by the sea,

In many lands, with painful steps,

Ere she can find a tree.

She ransacks mines and ledges

And quarries every rock,

To hew the famous adamant

For each eternal block —

She lays her beams in music,

In music every one,

To the cadence of the whirling world

Which dances round the sun —

That so they shall not be displaced

By lapses or by wars,

But for the love of happy souls

Outlive the newest stars.