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 of the marbles; burned it, slacked it, and spread;
Taking and leaving at pleasure the gifts of the humble dead.

Yet I despised not nor gloried; 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.