The Living Temple

Temples of the pure and holy,
   Shrines no outward builder rears,
Rising from foundations lowly,
   Grander through the immortal years
      Are the spirits
   Of Truth’s dauntless pioneers.

On the rock of private honor,
   Deep below the flowery sod,
Lies the chief stone of the corner,
   Duty’s granite carved by God
      With out life-law,
   Broad as heaven and pure as broad.

Faith the spans with luminous arches
   The dim gulfs of earth and sky,—
Courage set like mountain-larches,—
   Lift the royal done on high,
      Where new sunrise
   Flashes first to greet the eye.

Virtue seals and passion crumbles
   Coigne and buttress in our wall;
If unplumbed by truth, it tumbles
   With an ignominious fall,
      And our ruin
   Shakes the pillared strength of all.

Every purpose, pure and noble,
   Lifts a white columnar arm,
Firm against the gales of trouble
   Bearing up a shield from harm,—
      All our Manhood,—
   That from thousands breaks the storm.

Pure must be that veiled altar,
   The brave hearts that burn within;
All our rhythmic thoughts a psalter
   Rhymed with truth and love, that win
      Heavenly echoes
   From the victors over sin!

Free from every reek of vileness
   The clear windows of the eye,
Whence the soul may look out guileless,
   When the trooping wings go by,
     Of white angels
   Bearing garlands down the sky.

So may songs of consecration
   Fill this temple which we rear,
Word and work and aspiration
   Shall be ceaseless praise and prayer,
      Till life’s portals
   Open on the golden stair!