IF all the thoughts of all the minds of men At last were stilled in night for evermore; If all the sea should fade from all the shore, And all the earth be as a dried-up fen; Would not the Maker and Destroyer then Look backward half-remorseful, and deplore The ruined world Himself might not restore, His own creation, withered from His ken? Or would such things as here did bear in them Intenser life-fire than the rest attain, Live on, as at their highest, in spheres untrod By meaner Being? -- The might of Shakespeare's brain; The vast Compassion born at Bethlehem; And Beauty perfect from the hands of God. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONNET: OF THREE GIRLS AND OF THEIR TALK by GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO A SHROPSHIRE LAD: 9 by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN ULTIMA THULE: MY CATHEDRAL by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW GOBLIN MARKET by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI A COMPARISON OF THE LIFE OF MAN by RICHARD BARNFIELD ON THE YANGSTE KIANG by BERTON BRALEY |