PROPOSAL FOR AN ANNEXE TO THE GREAT EXHIBITION. Ceesrae and
adamant, with domes that seem
Hung star-like out of heaven, with fret and gem,
It is—what iron-masters, if they dream,
Picture the New Jerusalem;
Not like the pale cloud homes that please a saint,
But reared on solid brick, and gay with paint..
We tread on holy ground. Let us adore The golden Go4 our own right hands have wrought, Who claims no broken heart, yet gives US more Than all our prayerful fathers sought; These groped about a shadowy cross; and now— Have we not steam and steel, the loom, the plough?
O temple of the nobler race of men!
O great dawn of the royal day to be! If Christ, who promised once, descend again To set the groaning nations free,
What better gospel can he leave behind Than peace on earth, and trade with all mankind?
Yet out of very humbleness to prove
Our hearts warm in us toward the fruitless dead, Let one small aisle be raised, where Mary's love May be hung up and ticketed With His great agony who sealed the law, And those last dreams which dying Stephen saw.
Old heroisms, old thoughts, let them be weighed. The smile that lit the Spartan when he fell— The unbodied voice that Socrates obeyed—
Vie Tuscan's memories of hell— .
Ghosts though they be, may serve the New World's show, Fit foils for lacquer, gilt, and calico.
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