We are all workmen: prentice, journeyman, or master,—building you, you lofty nave. Sometimes an earnest traveler comes to scan our labor, whose help is a wind to fan our souls, as sunlight on the architrave. Upon the rocking scaffolding we rise, the hammers in our hands swing heavily, until a gracious hour hither flies, whose radiance is wonderful and wise, hailing from you as wind hails from the sea. Then many hammers echo south and north, and on the heights their throb is like a blast. Only with dusk we yield you up at last: And see your shaping contours shadowed forth. God, you are vast. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO A WATERFOWL by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT THE DOG by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES MARTHY VIRGINIA'S HAND [SEPTEMBER 17, 1862] by GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP ELIOT'S OAK; SONNET by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW JUBILATE AGNO: GARDNER'S TALENT by CHRISTOPHER SMART INDIGNATION; AN ODE by LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE |