What time the meanest brick and stone <br />Take on a beauty not their own, <br />And past the flaw of builded wood <br />Shines the intention whole and good, <br />And all the little homes of man <br />Rise to a dimmer, nobler span; <br />When colour's absence gives escape <br />To the deeper spirit of the shape, <br /> <br />-- Then earth's great architecture swells <br />Among her mountains and her fells <br />Under the moon to amplitude <br />Massive and primitive and rude: <br /> <br />-- Then do the clouds like silver flags <br />Stream out above the tattered crags, <br />And black and silver all the coast <br />Marshalls its hunched and rocky host, <br />And headlands striding sombrely <br />Buttress the land against the sea, <br />-- The darkened land, the brightening wave -- <br />And moonlight slants through Merlin's cave.<br /><br />Victoria Sackville-West<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/moonlight-4/
