Rodin in Rime

Let day, a glowing vigour, male; And night, a virgin bowed and curled, Stand at the foot; their ardours pale Systole and diastole of the world! With life impearled (their eyes absorb) They visibly sustain the orb. Then let the tower in seven tiers Rise in its splendour marmorean, Unite the chill divided years In plain perception of the aeon. Cry clear the paean! Its tunes recoil About thy flanks, O Tower of Toil. Below be miners fashioned fair, And all that labour in the sea Sepulchred from the ambient air, A fatal weird of dole to dree. No time to be, no light to live, Earth’s need to these hath hope to give. Above be various shapes of labour, The bodily strength, the manual skill; They shape the anvil and the sabre, The ploughshare and the bolt; they fill The myriad will of brains that boil: Their fame be thine, O Tower of Toil! 16