IF all the thoughts of all the minds of men At last were stilled in night for evermore; If all the sea should fade from all the shore, And all the earth be as a dried-up fen; Would not the Maker and Destroyer then Look backward half-remorseful, and deplore The ruined world Himself might not restore, His own creation, withered from His ken? Or would such things as here did bear in them Intenser life-fire than the rest attain, Live on, as at their highest, in spheres untrod By meaner Being? -- The might of Shakespeare's brain; The vast Compassion born at Bethlehem; And Beauty perfect from the hands of God. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AT NIGHT; SONNET by AMY LOWELL SECRECY PROTESTED by THOMAS CAREW ON THE PORTRAIT OF SHAKESPEARE by BEN JONSON PHILOMELA by JOHN CROWE RANSOM THE IRISH MOTHER'S LAMENT by CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 11. AL-MUTAKABBIR by EDWIN ARNOLD |