| NOT made with hands, its walls began to climb | |
| From roots in Life’s foundations deeply set, | |
| Far down amid primaeval forms, where yet | |
| Creation’s Finger seemed to grope in slime. | |
| Yet not in vain passed those first-born of Time, | 5 |
| Since each some presage gave of structure met | |
| In higher types, lest these the bond forget | |
| That links Earth’s latest to the fore-world’s prime | |
| And living stone on living stone was laid, | |
| In scale ascending ever, grade on grade, | 10 |
| To that which in its Maker’s eyes seemed good— | |
| The Human Form: and in that shrine of thought, | |
| By the long travail of the ages wrought, | |
| The Temple of the Incarnation stood. | |
| |
| Through all the ages since the primal ray, | 15 |
| Herald of life, first smote the abysmal night | |
| Of elemental Chaos, and the might | |
| Of the Creative Spark informed the clay, | |
| From worm to brute, from brute to man—its way | |
| The Shaping Thought took upward, flight on flight, | 20 |
| By stages which Earth’s loftiest unite | |
| Unto her least, made kin to such as they. | |
| As living link, or prophecy, or type | |
| Of purpose for fulfilment yet unripe, | |
| Each has its niche in the supreme design; | 25 |
| Converging to one Pinnacle, whereat | |
| Sole stands Creation’s Masterpiece—and that | |
| Which was through her—the Human made Divine. | |
