THE PRAISE OF DUST

‘ What of vile dust?’ the preacher said.

Methought the whole world woke,

The dead stone lived beneath my foot,

And my whole body spoke.

‘ You, that play tyrant to the dust,

And stamp its wrinkled face,

This patient star that flings you not

Far into homeless space.

‘ Come down out of your dusty shrine

The living dust to see,

The flowers that at your sermon's end

Stand blazing silently.

‘ Rich white and blood-red blossom; stones,

Lichens like fire encrust;

A gleam of blue, a glare of gold,

The vision of the dust.

‘ Pass them all by: till, as you come

Where, at a city's edge,

Under a tree — I know it well —

Under a lattice ledge,

‘ The sunshine falls on one brown head.

You, too, O cold of clay,

Eater of stones, may haply hear

The trumpets of that day

‘ When God to all his paladins

By his own splendour swore

To make a fairer face than heaven,

Of dust and nothing more.’