Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/389

Rh A TEMPLE OF ART

WRITTEN FOR THE OPENING OF THE ALBRIGHT ART GALLERY, BUFFALO, MAY 31, 1905

I

to the day the rose,

The moon-flower suddenly to the night,

Their mysteries of light

In innocence unclose.

II

In this garden of delight,

This pillared temple, pure and white,

We plant the seed of art,

With mystic power

To bring, or sudden or slow, the perfect flower,

That cheers and comforts the sad human heart;

That brings to man high thought

From starry regions caught,

And sweet, unconscious nobleness of deed;

So he may never lose his childhood's joyful creed,

While years and sorrows to sorrows and years succeed.

III

Tho' thick the cloud that hides the unseen life

Before we were and after we shall be,

Here in this fragment of eternity;

And heavy is the burden and the strife—

The universe, we know, in beauty had its birth;

The day in beauty dawns, in beauty dies,

With intense color of the sea and skies;

And life, for all its rapine, with beauty floods the earth.

Lovely the birds, and their true song,

Amid the murmurous leaves, the summer long.