At times the drifting clouds a profile trace, Fashioning freak outlines in their flimsy dew; In such ephemeral etchings you may view Man's folly when he carves a mountain's face. Come, gale and rain and frost, with lovelier grace Your rare and age-long sculpturing to renew; Iconoclasts of orthodoxy true, This hybrid stone-work shatter and erase! The puny tools of man's misguided hand Mar with his miniature a range sublime, And dent the heights with shallow tracery. Leave nature to the artistry of time, To that high skill which glorifies the land By journeyings of God's eternity! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BOOK OF STONES AND LILIES by AMY LOWELL AN EPITAPH, INTENDED FOR HIMSELF by JAMES BEATTIE A BALLAD OF SARSFIELD; OR, THE BURSTING OF THE GUNS by AUBREY THOMAS DE VERE TO MY HONORED FRIEND SIR ROBERT HOWARD by JOHN DRYDEN THE MYSTERIOUS CAT by NICHOLAS VACHEL LINDSAY THE THREE WARNINGS by HESTER LYNCH (SALUSBURY) PIOZZI MONNA INNOMINATA, A SONNET OF SONNETS: 9 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI TO MR. BLEECKER, ON HIS PASSAGE TO NEW YORK by ANN ELIZA BLEECKER |