At times the drifting clouds a profile trace, Fashioning freak outlines in their flimsy dew; In such ephemeral etchings you may view Man's folly when he carves a mountain's face. Come, gale and rain and frost, with lovelier grace Your rare and age-long sculpturing to renew; Iconoclasts of orthodoxy true, This hybrid stone-work shatter and erase! The puny tools of man's misguided hand Mar with his miniature a range sublime, And dent the heights with shallow tracery. Leave nature to the artistry of time, To that high skill which glorifies the land By journeyings of God's eternity! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO KNOW IN REVERIE THE ONLY PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE ABSOLUTE by HAYDEN CARRUTH DR. SCUDDER'S CLINICAL LECTURE by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SONGS AND THE POET (FOR SARA TEASDALE) by LOUIS UNTERMEYER COUSIN NANCY by THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT EVENING IN ENGLAND by FRANCIS LEDWIDGE COLUMBUS [AUGUST 3, 1492] by JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER |