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And trees at intervals
For travelers who make things worse)
-- I'd like to make, I say,
Here and there on the way
A little rough shrine,
Something for contemplation,
Like your own kitchen chair,
That's surely now a shrine
And asks for no oblation
From us but contemplation.
Help me when I raise mine
Without an architect,
Made out of words alone
(And for no creed or sect,
And for no personal need)
Along the open way
Spirit comes on today --
To be detected in
The evident and near
And plain and secular,
Drastically puritan.
(Bringing back pure, I mean,
Into our glutted scene
A meaning all but lost
When the Mayfl ower crossed,
Or St. Francis stripped bare,
Or Christ hung and was broken,
Or Aeschylus had spoken,
Or time-out-of-mind sages
Further and further east;
Always there, though, not least
Glimpsed in the worst of ages:
A mundane pentecost
The mortal spirit makes
Even as it breaks.)