The Palace

When I was a King and a Mason — a Master proven and skilled —
I cleared me ground for a Palace such as a King should build
I decreed and dug down to my levels. Presently, under the silt
I came on the wreck of a Palace such as a King had built

There was no worth in the fashion -- there was no wit in the plan —
Hither and thither, aimless, the ruined footings ran —
Masonry, brute, and mishandled, but carven on every stone:
"After me cometh a Builder. Tell him, I too have known."

Swift to my use in my trenches, where my well-planned ground-works grew
I tumbled his quoins and his ashlars, and cut and reset them anew
Lime I milled out of his marbles; burned it, and slacked it, and spread;
Taking and leaving at pleasure the gifts of the humble dead

Yet I despised not nor gloried; for yet, as we wrenched them apart
I read in the razed foundations the heart of that builder's heart
As he had risen and pleaded, so did I understand
The form of the dream he had followed in the face of the thing he had planned

When I was a King and a Mason — in the open noon of my pride
They sent me a Word from the Darkness. They whispered and called me aside
They said — "The end is forbidden." They said — "Thy use is fulfilled
"Thy Palace shall stand as that other's — the spoil of a King who shall build."

I recalled all my men from my trenches, my quarries, my wharves, and my sheers
All I had wrought I abandoned to the faith of the faithless years
But I cut upon every timber — and I carved into every stone:
"After me cometh a Builder. Tell him, I too have known!"