- All are architects of Fate,
- Working in these walls of Time;
- Some with massive deeds and great,
- Some with ornaments of rhyme.
- Nothing useless is, or low;
- Each thing in its place is best;
- And what seems but idle show
- Strengthens and supports the rest.
- For the structure that we raise,
- Time is with materials filled;
- Our to-days and yesterdays
- Are the blocks with which we build.
- Truly shape and fashion these;
- Leave no yawning gaps between;
- Think not, because no man sees,
- Such things will remain unseen.
- In the elder days of Art,
- Builders wrought with greatest care
- Each minute and unseen part;
- For the Gods see everywhere.
- Let us do our work as well,
- Both the unseen and the seen;
- Make the house, where Gods may dwell,
- Beautiful, entire, and clean.
- Else our lives are incomplete,
- Standing in these walls of Time,
- Broken stairways, where the feet
- Stumble as they seek to climb.
- Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
- With a firm and ample base;
- And ascending and secure
- Shall to-morrow find its place.
- Thus alone can we attain
- To those turrets, where the eye
- Sees the world as one vast plain,
- And one boundless reach of sky.
Biography: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
