WHEN the deep cunning architect <br />Had the great minster planned, <br />They worked in faith for twice two hundred years <br />And reared the building grand; <br />War came and famine and they did not falter, <br />But held his line, <br />And filled the space divine <br />With carvings meet for the soul's eye; <br />And not alone the chantry and thereby <br />The snowy altar, <br />But in every part <br />They carved the minster after his own heart, <br />And made the humblest places fair, <br />Even the dimmest cloister-way and stair, <br />With vineyard tendrils, <br />With ocean-seeming shells, <br />With filmy weeds from sea, <br />With bell-flowers delicate and bells, <br />All done minute with excellent tracery. <br />Come, O my soul, <br />And let me build thee like the minster fair, <br />Deep based and large as air, <br />And full of hidden graces wrought <br />In faith and infinite thought, <br />Till all thy dimmest ways, <br />Shall gleam with little vines and fruits of praise, <br />So that one day <br />The consummate Architect <br />Who planned the souls that we are set to build, <br />May pause and say: <br />How curiously wrought is this! <br />The builder followed well My thought, My chart, <br />And worked for Me, not for the world's wild heart; <br />Here are the outward virtues true! <br />But see how all the inner parts are filled <br />With singular bliss: <br />Set it aside <br />I shall come here again at eventide.<br /><br />Duncan Campbell Scott<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-builder/
