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Page 1 of 11907 · PDF PAGE 29
THE TOWER OF TOIL (LA TOUR DE TRAVAIL) HE old sun rolls; the old earth spins; Incessant labour bends the stars. Hath not enough of woes and sins — Passed? Who shall efface their senseless scars? One makes, one mars. The aeons foil All purpose; rise, O Tower of Toil. Rise in thy radiance to proclaim The agony of the earth alive! Stand by the sea, a marble flame, A lighthouse wedded to an hive! Still upward strive! O tower, arise An endless spiral to the skies! Stand on the weather-beaten coast A flaming angel in the noon; A silver, fascinated gh…
1907 · PDF PAGE 32
…itting strain) Forget the miracles that grow In the austerely ordered brain! Darwin and Taine, Descartes and Boyle, Inscribe thou on the Tower of Toil! Those who have striven to limn the mind, Paint, model, tune, or hymn the light, Their vision of the world refined By mastery of superior sight: Honour their might! the gain have these Of all men’s woes and ecstasies! High soul; no benediction seek From any spirit but our own! Crown not the mighty with the weak! The Tower be a Tower, and not a Throne! In man-carved stone the endless coil Arise un…
1907 · PDF PAGE 31
…ust”! Thy splendid sons and daughters stand Obedient to the master “must.” The decadent dust thy spells assoil; Death lives in this, thy Tower of Toil. Grow up the grades! record the tasks These arduous phantoms have achieved! The growth of mind to mortals asks A power not swift to be believed. What bosoms heaved ere Nature's age From monkey-man deduced the sage! So be thy spiral tower the type Of higher convolutions drawn From hunger’s woe and murder’s gripe And lust’s revulsion to the dawn Of days that spawn on holier soil Thy loftier sons, O…
1907 · PDF PAGE 30
…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 shape…
1907 · PDF PAGE 33
…t, the crown upon Work’s brow? Thy will with love endued Lift up this loftier Parthenon! Thine art the consecrative oil To hallow us the Tower of Toil! 19