On the rock primeval, hidden in the
Past its bases be,
Block by block the endeavoring Ages
built it up to what we see.

But dig down the Old unbury; thou

shalt find on every stone

That each Age hath carved the symbol of what god to them was known. Ugly shapes and brutish sometimes, but the fairest that they knew ; If their sight were dim and earthward, yet their hope and aim were true.

Surely as the unconscious needle feels the far-off loadstar draw,

So strives every gracious nature to atone itself with law;

And the elder Saints and Sages laid their

pious framework right

By a theocratic instinct covered from the people's sight.

As their gods were, so their laws were ; Thor the strong could reave and steal,

So through many a peaceful inlet tore the

Norseman's eager keel; But a new law came when Christ came, and not blameless, as before, Can we, paying him our lip-tithes, give our lives and faiths to Thor.

Law is holy ay, but what law? Is there nothing more divine Than the patched-up broils of Congress, venal, full of meat and wine?

Is there, say you, nothing higher? Naught, God save us! that transcends

Laws of cotton texture, wove by vulgar men for vulgar ends?

Did Jehovah ask their counsel, or submit to them a plan, Ere he filled with loves, hopes, longings, this aspiring heart of man? For their edict does the soul wait, ere it

swing round to the pole Of the true, the free, the God-willed, all that makes it be a soul?

Law is holy; but not your law, ye who keep the tablets whole While ye dash the Law to pieces, shatter it in life and soul;

Lo! the skulking wild fox scratches in a little heap of dust.

Him who alone is mighty and great."

With carpets of gold the ground they spread

Wherever the Son of Man should tread, And in palace-chambers lofty and rare They lodged him, and served him with kingly fare.

Great organs surged through arches dim Their jubilant floods in praise of him; And in church, and palace, and judg ment-hall,

He saw his own image high over all.

But still, wherever his steps they led, The Lord in sorrow bent down his head, And from under the heavy foundationstones,

The son of Mary heard bitter groans.

And in church, and palace, and judgment-hall,

He marked great fissures that rent the wall,

And opened wider and yet more wide As the living foundation heaved and sighed.

"Have ye founded your thrones and altars, then,

On the bodies and souls of living men? And think ye that building shall endure, Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor?

I have heard the dropping of their tears In heaven these eighteen hundred years."

"O Lord and Master, not ours the guilt, We build but as our fathers built; Behold thine images, how they stand, Sovereign and sole, through all our land.

My name is Water: I have sped Through strange, dark ways, untried before,

By pure desire of friendship led,
Cochituate's ambassador;

He sends four royal gifts by me:
Long life, health, peace, and purity.

I'm Ceres' cup-bearer; I pour,

For flowers and fruits and all their kin, Her crystal vintage, from of yore

Stored in old Earth's selectest bin, Flora's Falernian ripe, since God The wine-press of the deluge trod.

In that far isle whence, iron-willed,
The New World's sires their bark
unmoored,

The fairies' acorn-cups I filled
Upon the toadstool's silver board,