For Four Guilds: II. The Bridge-Builders

In the world's whitest morning     As hoary with hope,     The Builder of Bridges     Was priest and was pope:     And the mitre of mystery     And the canopy his,     Who darkened the chasms     And domed the abyss.     To eastward and westward     Spread wings at his word     The arch with the key-stone     That stoops like a bird;     That rides the wild air     And the daylight cast under;     The highway of danger,     The gateway of wonder.     Of his throne were the thunders     That rivet and fix     Wild weddings of strangers     That meet and not mix;     The town and the cornland;     The bride and the groom:     In the breaking of bridges     Is treason and doom.     But he bade us, who fashion     The road that can fly,     That we build not too heavy     And build not too high:     Seeing alway that under     The dark arch's bend     Shine death and white daylight     Unchanged to the end.     Who walk on his mercy     Walk light, as he saith,     Seeing that our life     Is a bridge above death;     And the world and its gardens     And hills, as ye heard,     Are born above space     On the wings of a bird.     Not high and not heavy     Is building of his:     When ye seal up the flood     And forget the abyss,     When your towers are uplifted,     Your banners unfurled,     In the breaking of bridges     Is the end of the world.