It was a queer country your harsh Lord gave you, Great Brigham, whom I see coated and curled In bronze before me in the public square! It was a scraped and shining skeleton, Gnawed to the bone long since at God's first breakfast And thrown away to bleach out in the sun. Yet here He led you -- The Lord and his vicegerent Joseph Smith -- He ordered you To take the dead earth from His niggard hand And set His Throne up by the salty sea -- The little bucketful of ocean, poured Over the desert's feet between the hills. And so you starved and prayed, Thirsted and starved and prayed through the lean years, Keeping the faith, digging your little ditches, Making the desert blossom as the rose. You married many wives, And got you many children to fulfil The special order whispered in the night To His apostle by the Lord Himself -- The God of Abraham, of Saul and David, Of Solomon and other lustful kings. And here, tithe upon tithe, stone upon stone, Your saints built up His throne unto the Lord From plans the angel taught your hand to draw: His new Solomon's Temple, heaven-rememberd, To rise again here at the western gate, And prove His glory in these latter days! Great Brigham, sleeping now under the desert With all your wives, What summary vengeance have you meted out To that ironic angel? @3He alone builds Who builds for beauty, shrining his little truth In stones that make it fair@1. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SEA-GRAVE by SARA TEASDALE RUGBY CHAPEL by MATTHEW ARNOLD LWONESOMENESS by WILLIAM BARNES CINQUAIN: AMAZE by ADELAIDE CRAPSEY THE PAST by RALPH WALDO EMERSON THE CHURCH WINDOWS by GEORGE HERBERT TO A FRIEND WHOSE WORK HAS COME TO NOTHING by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS |