Tower of Ivory/A Library of Law
A LIBRARY OF LAW
Adjudicated quarrels of mankind,
Brown row on row!—how well these lawyers bind
Their records of dead sin,—as if they feared
The hate might spill and their long shelves be smeared
With slime of human souls,—brown row on row
Span on Philistine span, a greasy show
Of lust and lies and cruelty, dried grime
Streaked from the finger of the beggar, Time.
I wonder if the little letters there,
Black-stamped and damned eternally to bear
The records of old sin, must never long
For that fair printed world of ancient song,
Where, line on martial line, they stretch across
The vellum's edge to some irradiant boss
Of scarlet lettering, where sits a quaint
Gilt-featured and attenuated saint,
That world where they grow volatile and fling
A spray of golden butterflies a-wing
Up through the blue infinities of dream
To brush God's feet, and flutter, wings a-gleam,
About the veinless marble of His chair,
And make a sudden splendor through His hair;
That world where they drift ghostly down the dusk
Of old forgotten twilights, toss the musk
Of primroses against his face who reads,
Make prayers from the clicking of old beads,
Blow long dead summers through the naked trees
Leaf after leaf, call back faint memories
Of lips that once were sweet, and eyes once glad,
And little hands that set the spirit mad
With plucking of invisible lute strings,—
All, all the vanished magic of dead things.