Miracle, and Other Poems

<h2 id="id00320" style="margin-top: 4em">THE TEMPLE</h2> <p id="id00321">Enter the temple beautiful! The house not made with hands!<br/> Rain-washed and green, wind-swept and clean,<br/> Beneath the blue it stands,<br/> And no cathedral anywhere<br/> Seemeth so holy or so fair.<br/></p> <p id="id00322">It hath no heavy gabled roof, no door with lock and key,<br/> No window-bars shut out the stars,<br/> The aisles are wide and free—<br/> Here through the night each altar-light<br/> Is but a moon-beam, silver-white.<br/></p> <p id="id00323">Silently as the temple grew at Solomon's command,<br/> Still as things seem within a dream<br/> This rose from out the land:<br/> And all the pillars, grey and high,<br/> Lifted their arches to the sky.<br/></p> <p id="id00324">Here is the perfume of the leaves, the incense of the pines—<br/> The magic scent that hath been pent<br/> Within the tangled vines:<br/> No censor filled with spices rare<br/> E'er swung such sweetness on the air.<br/></p> <p id="id00325">And all the golden gloom of it holdeth no haunting fear,<br/> For it is blessed, and giveth rest<br/> To those who enter here—<br/> Here in the evening—who can know<br/> But God Himself walks to and fro!<br/></p> <p id="id00326">And music past all mastering within the chancel rings;<br/> None could desire a sweeter choir<br/> Than this—that soars and sings,<br/> Till far the scented shadows creep—<br/> And quiet darkness bringeth sleep.<br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />