Maryland, my Maryland, and other poems/Architecture
ARCHITECTURE
Gone—gone the spires, and pinnacles, and fanes,
I built upon the mist-isles of the past,
Nought but a hollow Babylon remains
Of all the bright, adorable, and vast;
Still I make miraculous amends
By hewing Meccas from your hearts, my friends!
Welcome! ye passionate rills that cleave my brain,
Blest with ebullient melodies of morn—
While ’mid the plumed battalia of the cane
Throb the red sun-flags by encrimsoned corn!
Here, where the forest with the field contends,
I’ll sculpture immortalities, my friends!
Imperial Heart! that blossomed into mine
Hot with eleusia of electric youth—
Friend of my boyhood! a majestic shrine
I chisel from that burning heart of truth.
Where the parched gulls to velvet waves descend,
Be thou, my Monolith of Faith, my friend!
Devoted Heart! that bore mine, like an ark,
Through the blind deluge of disease and care,
Giving it shelter in the light when dark
And hideous fortunes throttled with despair—
While the glad planets o’er the globe impend,
Be thou my battlement of Pride, my friend!
Undaunted Heart! that into mine hath poured
The subtle wine-blood of its lusty praise—
A living bulwark, with its shield and sword,
When I had fallen upon coward days;
O, could I to ethereal worlds ascend,
Thy Heart should be my Pantheon, my friend!
Maternal Heart! that charmed mine in the path
That glideth to the splendor of the Throne,
And soothed it, blistered in the climes of wrath,
And kissed it, shud’ring from the abyss of moan,
The sweet, sweet skies, like incense, interblend
About the Altar of thy Heart, my friend!
And thou—who comest like a meteor-beam
To quell me in the zenith of my pride—
Thou—thou who mocketh me with that fatal gleam
Which gave me but the ghost-world for a bride—
Woe! woe! the palaces I wrought depart,
And all my necromancy is a tomb—my Heart.