The Builders

[Xipe Totec]

All are architects of Fate,
Working in these walls of Time;
Some with massive deeds and great,
Some with ornaments of rhyme.

Nothing useless is, or low;
Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these;
Leave no yawning gaps between;
Think not, because no man sees,
Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the Gods see everywhere.

Let us do our work as well,
Both the unseen and the seen;
Make the house, where Gods may dwell,
Beautiful, entire, and clean.

Else our lives are incomplete,
Standing in these walls of Time,
Broken stairways, where the feet
Stumble as they seek to climb.

Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure
Shall to-morrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attain
To those turrets, where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain,
And one boundless reach of sky.


- Poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

[mia]

1. Great tribute to these great men. Thank you.

You reminded me of another poem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGNuPCFdIys&feature=related

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
A PSALM OF LIFE

WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN
SAID TO THE PSALMIST

TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream ! —
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real ! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way ;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle !
Be a hero in the strife !

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant !
Let the dead Past bury its dead !
Act,— act in the living Present !
Heart within, and God o'erhead !

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time ;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate ;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

[Xipe Totec]

2. And this one as well:

Once in a while (life gives us)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=8525827&mesg_id=8525895

Every once in a while,
life kisses us full in the mouth
And opens up in color like an atlas,
and we feel ourselves in good hands.

It becomes the right size for us,
and catches our stride
pulls a rabbit out of a hat
and we become happy as children
when school lets out.

Every once in a while
life drinks coffee with us
and becomes so beautiful, that it's a pleasure to see.
She lets her hair lose and invites us
up on the stage.

Every once in a while
she offer herself in full
and grants gifts so slippery
we must walk on tip-toes
to keep from breaking the spell.


Every one in a while
life pulls out the paint brushes
we get goosebumps, and words fail
to describe what she offers
to those that that know how to use them.

And every once in a while
Life plays a joke on us
and we wake up without knowing
what happened; sucking our thumbs
sitting on a pumpkin.

- Joan Manuel Serrat

[mia]

3. The good times are ahead.

We've been lead by those "pumpkins" for the last eight years.