10 Poems on Builders & Buildings

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Temples and architects, builders and buildings are like poets and poems, each creates rooms, stanzas, within which we and our ideas have life. Sometimes, a poem is inscribed upon a stylobate, column, or entablature. Sometimes the poem is a dedication, a song of praise, or a vow fulfilled. Sometimes, the poem is a boast. Among the boasts, the verse Ashurnasirpal II ordered to be inscribed upon the wall of his palace at Nimrud:
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I built thereon a palace with halls of cedar, cypress, juniper, boxwood, teak, terebinth, and tamarisk as my royal dwelling and for the enduring leisure life of my lordship … Beasts of the mountains and the seas, which I had fashioned out of white limestone and alabaster, I had set up in its gates. I made my palace fittingly imposing.
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—Nimrud Banquet Stele, circa 879 BC; destroyed by ISIS, 2015.
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You might like to know, the palace walls were 120 feet thick, 42 feet high, and 5 miles long enclosing some 900 acres that contained every building typical of an acropolis. 69,574 persons attended the festival celebrating the formal dedication of Ashurnasirpal’s awe-inspiring capital.
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Alcinous’ Majestic Palace in Homer’s Odyssey

Great buildings inspire awe, as do great poems, things whose majesty is imposed upon us. Homer in The Odyssey has prince Odysseus stand in awe before Alcinous’ majestic palace:
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Meanwhile Ulysses at the palace waits,
There stops, and anxious with his soul debates,
Fix’d in amaze before the royal gates.
The front appear’d with radiant splendours gay,
Bright as the lamp of night, or orb of day,
The walls were massy brass: the cornice high
Blue metals crown’d in colours of the sky,
Rich plates of gold the folding doors incase;
The pillars silver, on a brazen base;
Silver the lintels deep-projecting o’er,
And gold the ringlets that command the door.
Two rows of stately dogs, on either hand,
In sculptured gold and labour’d silver stood
These Vulcan form’d with art divine, to wait
Immortal guardians at Alcinous’ gate;
Alive each animated frame appears,
And still to live beyond the power of years,
Fair thrones within from space to space were raised,
Where various carpets with embroidery blessed,
The work of matrons: these the princes press’d.
Day following day, a long-continued feast,
Refulgent pedestals the walls surround,
Which boys of gold with illuming torches crown’d;
The polish’d oar, reflecting every ray,
Blazed on the banquets with a double day.
Full fifty handmaids form the household train;
Some turn the mill, or sift the golden grain;
Some ply the loom; their busy fingers move
Like poplar-leaves when Zephyr fans the grove.
Not more renown’d the men of Scheria’s isle
For sailing arts and all the naval toil,
Than works of female skill their women’s pride,
The flying shuttle through the threads to guide:
Pallas to these her double gifts imparts,
Incentive genius, and industrious arts.
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Close to the gates a spacious garden lies,
From storms defended and inclement skies.
Four acres was the allotted space of ground,
Fenced with a green enclosure all around.
Tall thriving trees confess’d the fruitful mould:
The reddening apple ripens here to gold.
Here the blue fig with luscious juice o’erflows,
With deeper red the full pomegranate glows;
The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear,
And verdant olives flourish round the year,
The balmy spirit of the western gale
Eternal breathes on fruits, unthought to fail:
Each dropping pear a following pear supplies,
On apples apples, figs on figs arise:
The same mild season gives the blooms to blow,
The buds to harden, and the fruits to grow.
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Here order’d vines in equal ranks appear,
With all the united labours of the year;
Some to unload the fertile branches run,
Some dry the blackening clusters in the sun,
Others to tread the liquid harvest join:
The groaning presses foam with floods of wine
Here are the vines in early flower descried,
Here grapes discolour’d on the sunnyside,
And there in autumn’s richest purple dyed,
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Beds of all various herbs, for ever green,
In beauteous order terminate the scene.
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Two plenteous fountains the whole prospect crown’d
This through the gardens leads its streams around
Visits each plant, and waters all the ground;
While that in pipes beneath the palace flows,
And thence its current on the town bestows:
To various use their various streams they bring,
The people one, and one supplies the king.
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Such were the glories which the gods ordain’d,
To grace Alcinous, and his happy land.
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—The Odyssey, circa 750 BC; Book VII, Pope translation.
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The ancient Greek poet Hesiod tells of Orpheus who by song inspires stones to rise themselves and become a palace wall. So too from Hesiod we learn of Amphion who by the magic of verse-song builds his palace at Thebes. This from Euripides who develops the theme in his verse (though this is a prose translation):
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Next, I bid Amphion arm himself with lyre in hand and sing of the gods with songs; bewitched by your music, solid rocks will follow you and trees leave their seat in mother earth, so they will make light work for the builders’ hands. Zeus gives you this honour, and I with him, from whom you had this invention, lord Amphion.
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Orpheus Builds in Horace’s Ars Poetica (Excerpt)

In Ars Poetica, the ancient Roman poet Horace (65-8 BC) continues the theme, equating poets with builders who metaphorically create civilization:
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Orpheus, holy and an interpreter of the gods, scared woodland
men away from slaughter and foul sustenance, [and he was]
said on account of this to soothe tigers and rabid lions;
Amphion also, the founder of the Theban city, was said to move
rocks with the sound of his tortoise-shell [lyre] and with flattering prayer
to lead them where he wished. This was wisdom once,
to separate public things from private ones, sacred from profane,
to prohibit [people] from wandering sexual relations, to give rules to married people,
to build towns, to cut laws into wood [tablets].
Thus honor and the name came to divine poet-priests and to song-poems.
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—circa 15 BC; Shackleton Bailey translation
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Statue Inscription by Sosicrates

We find on hundreds of Greek and Roman temples, civic buildings and statues, dedicatory inscriptions, and sometimes signatures in verse: “Iphidike dedicated me to Athena, protectress of the city,” and “Archermos of Chios was the artist,” et cetera. Many inscriptions are in elegiacs or iambic epigram. One such is found on the base of a statue (now lost) of the Athenian sculptor, Niceratus. The inscription is a dedication by Sosicrates in commemoration of Philetaerus victory over the Gauls. You might recall that Philetaerus was founder of Pergamon’s Greek Attalid dynasty (282-129 BC).
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O blessed Philetaerus, you captivate both divine singers
and dexterous sculptors, lord.
These proclaim you mighty power, the ones in hymns,
the others by showing the skill of their hands,
how once joining in swift combat with those ill-omened warriors, the Gauls,
you drove them far beyond your own borders,
on account of which, these choice works by Niceratus
Sosicrates dedicated to you in sea-girt Delos,
a monument to be the subject of song for men of the future.
Not even Hephaestus himself would disdain the art upon seeing you.
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—275–274 BC; Bing-Bruss, translation.
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Throughout the Classive¹ world, Athens to Syracuse, Rome to Constantinople, Florence to Paris to Washington, DC, verse inscriptions dedicate buildings, events, and sacred places. You may remember Simonides epigram inscribed upon the monument at Thermopylae: “Go, tell the Spartans, passerby, / That here obedient to their laws we lie.” Here, now, inscribed atop our Washington Monument, Laus Deo, “Praise be to God.” In our senate house the inscriptions, Annuit Coeptis, “God has favored our undertakings,” Novus Ordo Seclorum, “A new order of the ages [is born],” E Pluribus Unum, “Out of many, one.”
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Perhaps you noticed a change in tone, Athens to Washington, a higher purpose from man to God and this Biblical, less bragging, more humility in appreciation of eternity. From Genesis, a sobering opinion of civilization, human limitation, and pride, hubris, our crippling fault, the cause of evils we brought and again bring upon ourselves. Though not poetry in the strict sense, we find a building central to the imagery:
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1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
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6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
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—Genesis, Chapter XI, King James translation
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Ours is a Christian nation whose formative lessons continue to shape opinion and behavior, our virtues and values in buildings of verse and buildings of stone or of sand. From Matthew 7:
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24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
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—King James translation.
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Sonnets by Michelangelo

Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564), maker of temples, statues, pictures, poems, composed hundreds of sonnets, many concerning design, building, and statuary:
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Sonnet 46

If my crude hammer shapes the hard stones
into one human appearance or another,
deriving its motion from the master who guides it,
watches and holds it, it moves at another’s pace.
But that divine one, which lodges and dwells in heaven,
beautifies self and others by its own action;
and if no hammer can be made without a hammer,
by that living one every other one is made.
And since a blow becomes more powerful
the higher it’s raised up over the forge,
that one’s flown up to heaven above my own.
So now my own will fail to be completed
unless the divine smithy, to help make it,
gives it that aid which was unique on earth.
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—circa 1528; James M. Saslow, translation.
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Sonnet 242

Since it’s true that, in hard stone, one will at times
make the image of someone else look like himself,
I often make her dreary
and ashen, just as I’m made by this woman;
and I seem to keep taking myself
as a model, whenever I think of depicting her.
I could well say that the stone
in which I model her
resembles her in its harsh hardness; but
in any case I could not,
while she scorns and destroys me,
sculpt anything but my own tormented features.
So, since art preserves the memory
of beauty through the years, if she wants to last,
she will make me glad, so that I’ll make her beautiful.
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—notated by M. “to sculptors”, circa 1540-1544; James M. Saslow, translation.
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Among Michelangelo’s famous buildings and civic designs, the Medici Chapel, Capitoline Hill, and Saint Peter’s Basilica (even now the world’s largest church and greatest interior space, a single, gargantuan stanza).
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Pandæmonium in Milton’s Paradise Lost

Perhaps the most infamous building comes to us through John Milton’s 17th century Paradise Lost, the capital of Hell, Pandæmonium (all demons), home to Satan and His Peers. Pandæmonium was designed by the architect Mulciber (the Roman Vulcan; Hephaestus in Greek), constructed of pure gold by Hell’s demons in about an hour. From the ending of Book I:
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He spake; and, to confirm his words, outflew
Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs
Of mighty Cherubim; the sudden blaze
Far round illumined Hell. Highly they raged
Against the Highest, and fierce with grasped arms
Clashed on their sounding shields the din of war,
Hurling defiance toward the vault of Heaven.
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poetry/curtis/essays
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There stood a hill not far, whose grisly top
Belched fire and rolling smoke; the rest entire
Shone with a glossy scurf—undoubted sign
That in his womb was hid metallic ore,
The work of sulphur. Thither, winged with speed,
A numerous brigade hastened: as when bands
Of pioneers, with spade and pickaxe armed,
Forerun the royal camp, to trench a field,
Or cast a rampart. Mammon led them on—
Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell
From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts
Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of Heaven’s pavement, trodden gold,
Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed
In vision beatific. By him first
Men also, and by his suggestion taught,
Ransacked the centre, and with impious hands
Rifled the bowels of their mother Earth
For treasures better hid. Soon had his crew
Opened into the hill a spacious wound,
And digged out ribs of gold. Let none admire
That riches grow in Hell; that soil may best
Deserve the precious bane. And here let those
Who boast in mortal things, and wondering tell
Of Babel, and the works of Memphian kings,
Learn how their greatest monuments of fame
And strength, and art, are easily outdone
By Spirits reprobate, and in an hour
What in an age they, with incessant toil
And hands innumerable, scarce perform.
Nigh on the plain, in many cells prepared,
That underneath had veins of liquid fire
Sluiced from the lake, a second multitude
With wondrous art founded the massy ore,
Severing each kind, and scummed the bullion-dross.
A third as soon had formed within the ground
A various mould, and from the boiling cells
By strange conveyance filled each hollow nook;
As in an organ, from one blast of wind,
To many a row of pipes the sound-board breathes.
Anon out of the earth a fabric huge
Rose like an exhalation, with the sound
Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet—
Built like a temple, where pilasters round
Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid
With golden architrave; nor did there want
Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven;
The roof was fretted gold. Not Babylon
Nor great Alcairo such magnificence
Equalled in all their glories, to enshrine
Belus or Serapis their gods, or seat
Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove
In wealth and luxury. Th’ ascending pile
Stood fixed her stately height, and straight the doors,
Opening their brazen folds, discover, wide
Within, her ample spaces o’er the smooth
And level pavement: from the arched roof,
Pendent by subtle magic, many a row
Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed
With naptha and asphaltus, yielded light
As from a sky. The hasty multitude
Admiring entered; and the work some praise,
And some the architect. His hand was known
In Heaven by many a towered structure high,
Where sceptred Angels held their residence,
And sat as Princes, whom the supreme King
Exalted to such power, and gave to rule,
Each in his Hierarchy, the Orders bright.
Nor was his name unheard or unadored
In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land
Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell
From Heaven they fabled, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o’er the crystal battlements: from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer’s day, and with the setting sun
Dropt from the zenith, like a falling star,
On Lemnos, th’ Aegaean isle. Thus they relate,
Erring; for he with this rebellious rout
Fell long before; nor aught availed him now
To have built in Heaven high towers; nor did he scape
By all his engines, but was headlong sent,
With his industrious crew, to build in Hell.
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Meanwhile the winged Heralds, by command
Of sovereign power, with awful ceremony
And trumpet’s sound, throughout the host proclaim
A solemn council forthwith to be held
At Pandemonium, the high capital
Of Satan and his peers. Their summons called
From every band and squared regiment
By place or choice the worthiest: they anon
With hundreds and with thousands trooping came
Attended. All access was thronged; the gates
And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall
(Though like a covered field, where champions bold
Wont ride in armed, and at the Soldan’s chair
Defied the best of Paynim chivalry
To mortal combat, or career with lance),
Thick swarmed, both on the ground and in the air,
Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings.
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Xanadu in Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan”

In recent centuries there are many verses of builders and buildings, some ecstatic, some sobering, some both, as in the verse Samuel Coleridge (1772-1834) composed when in a lotus induced reverie, “Kubla Khan: Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.”
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In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
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But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
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A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
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1797
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A Medley of Short Pieces

Not so well known, because not so fine, and yet worth knowing. “The Homes of England” by
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The stately Homes of England,
__How beautiful they stand!
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
__O’er all the pleasant land.
The deer across their greensward bound
__Thro’ shade and sunny gleam,
And the swan glides past them with the sound
__Of some rejoicing stream.
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Lord Elderly, Lord Borrowmere,
Lord Sickert and Lord Camp.
With every virtue, every grace
Ah, what avails the sceptred race.
Here you see the four of us,
And there are so many more of us-…
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I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house,
__Wherein at ease for aye to dwell.
I said, “O Soul, make merry and carouse,
__Dear soul, for all is well.”
A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish’d brass,
__I chose. The ranged ramparts bright
From level meadow-bases of deep grass
__Suddenly scaled the light
Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf
__The rock rose clear, or winding stair.
My soul would live alone unto herself
__In her high palace there.
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The Props assist the House
Until the House is built
And then the Props withdraw
And adequate, erect,
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Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Concord Hymn, Sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument, July 4, 1837″

And of course, America’s great dedicatory verse, a verse that (I expect) we all can recite from memory—though may not realize it since it is the origin of the phrase “the shot heard round the world”:
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By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
__Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
__And fired the shot heard round the world.
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The foe long since in silence slept;
__Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
__Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
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On this green bank, by this soft stream,
__We set today a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
__When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
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Spirit, that made those heroes dare
__To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
__The shaft we raise to them and thee.
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“The Arena: Causa Nostrae Laetitiae” by G.K. Chesterton

A verse not so well known but composed during the memory of some yet living, a verse concerning an event at a place by a person known by all, G.K. Chesterton, “The Arena: Causa Nostrae Laetitiae”. The verse was sung by Chesterton on Friday, 10 October, 1930 in dedication of Notre Dame’s new football stadium. The game was against Navy. Notre Dame won, 26, 2.
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dedicated to the University of Notre Dame, Indiana.
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__________There uprose a golden giant
__________On the gilded house of Nero
Even his far-flung flaming shadow and his image swollen large
__________Looking down on the dry whirlpool
__________Of the round Arena spinning
As a chariot-wheel goes spinning; and the chariots at the charge.
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_________And the molten monstrous visage
_________Saw the pageants, saw the torments,
Down the golden dust undazzled saw the gladiators go,
_________Heard the cry in the closed desert
_________Te salutant morituri,
As the slaves of doom went stumbling, shuddering, to the shades below.
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_________“Lord of Life, of lyres and laughter,
_________Those about to die salute thee,
At thy godlike fancy feeding men with bread and beasts with men,
_________But for us the Fates point deathward
_________In a thousand thumbs thrust downward,
And the Dog of Hell is roaring through the lions in their den.”
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_________I have seen, where a strange country
_________Opened its secret plains about me,
One great golden dome stand lonely with its golden image, one
_________Seen afar, in strange fulfillment,
_________Through the sunlit Indian summer
That Apocalyptic portent that has clothed her with the Sun.
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_________She too looks on the Arena
_________Sees the gladiators grapple,
She whose names are Seven Sorrows and the Cause of All Our Joy,
_________Sees the pit that stank with slaughter
_________Scoured to make the courts of morning
For the cheers of jesting kindred and the scampering of a boy.
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_________“Queen of Death and deadly weeping
_________Those about to live salute thee,
Youth untroubled; youth untutored; hateless war and harmless mirth
_________And the New Lord’s larger largesse
_________Holier bread and happier circus,
Since the Queen of Sevenfold Sorrow has brought joy upon the earth.”
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_________Burns above the broad arena
_________Where the whirling centuries circle,
Burns the Sun-clothed on the summit, golden-sheeted, golden shod,
_________Like a sun-burst on the mountains,
_________Like the flames upon the forest
Of the sunbeams of the sword-blades of the Gladiators of God.
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_________And I saw them shock the whirlwind
_________Of the World of dust and dazzle:
And thrice they stamped, a thunderclap; and thrice the sand-wheel swirled;
_________And thrice they cried like thunder
_________On Our Lady of the Victories,
The Mother of the Master of the Masterers of the World.
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_________“Queen of Death and Life undying
_________Those about to live salute thee;
Not the crawlers with the cattle; looking deathward with the swine,
_________But the shout upon the mountains
_________Of the men that live for ever
Who are free of all things living but a Child; and He was thine.”
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A Final Note

Little has changed these 2,500 years between Pindar, Chesterton, and the odes we compose today, because our nature does not change, and because our Classive civilization is consistent in theme since Homer and the Age of Heroes. Then as now we build our verses as we build our temples, solid of stone, beautifully and eloquently. Yes, there is always the babel of prose, its pride, its foolishness, its forgetfulness, stanzas built on sand that in rain and waves wash away. If you build with stones or with sticks, with bricks or with words, build in good meter well lined. Build upon tradition’s strong foundation, build beautifully knowing that ugly things are not loved, that unloved they are abandoned, fall and decay away. Build as you would build for God something Godlike, and do not build fast, build with the care that God gives to being. Build to last.
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Notes

Classive¹: the practice of human progress through tradition; most often inductive, bottom-up, ascending. Classive stands in contrast to progressive: the belief in human progress through science; most often deductive, top-down, descending. Both the Classive and the Progressive pursue perfection, the Progressive by new experiment without sympathy to persons, things, procedures; the Classive by proven practice with sympathy to persons, beauty, goodness, truth.
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Michael Curtis is an architect, sculptor, painter, historian, and poet, who is currently Artist-in-Residence at the Common Sense Society. He has for more than 40 years contributed to the revival of the classical arts. He has taught and lectured at universities, colleges, and museums, including The Institute of Classical Architecture, The National Gallery of Art, et cetera; his pictures and statues are housed in over four hundred private and public collections, including The Library of Congress, The Supreme Court, et alibi; his verse has been published in over twenty journals; his work in the visual arts can be found at TheClassicalArtist.com, and his literary work can be found at TheStudioBooks.com.

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6 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    The first poem on Alcinous is majestic and highly impressive for its images and detail that rhymes beautifully. Xanadu, the short poems and Emerson similarly impressed me for their vivid and wonderful rhymes. Picking one out from Emily Dickinson was inspired. I am overwhelmed by your biography showcasing amazing contributions in so many fields and fully understand your appreciation for these poems on buildings and architecture that you have shared with us to also appreciate. Thank you.

    Reply
  2. Joseph S. Salemi

    Quite an essay, and quite a collection! This certainly establishes all the evidence for a strong tradition of the linkage between poetic endeavor and architectural aspirations.

    I would also include Horace’s famous ode (iii.30) about building himself a monument more lasting than bronze:

    Exegi monumentum aere perennius…

    Tennyson’s “The Palace of Art” is clearly inspired by that same desire to create something that will last forever.

    Reply
  3. C.B. Anderson

    I have a strong feeling, Michael, that this project was a long time in the making. I can’t imagine myself having searched the Archive so diligently and deeply. Having built structures out of wood and masonry for many years before settling on building artifacts from slippery words, I get it.

    Reply
  4. James Sale

    This is an extremely impressive collection of extracts. I am overfond myself of Milton and Coleridge, but despite having read huge volumes and swathes of GK Chesterton did not know this particular poem! Thank you. Of even further interest too is the brief but telling references to Orpheus/Amphion – never mind Thebes, was this how the Pyramids were built? In mythology apparently they were dwarves who had this special ability to control sound. This is all so very suggestive, I love it.

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  5. Michael Curtis

    Thank you, all, for your comments, inclusions, insights: much appreciated. Wishing you each good thoughts, best words, precise meter, and inspired rhymes. Sincerely…

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  6. Daniel Kemper

    I really love your sentiment and I am deeply engaged in the idea of architectural advances in poetry myself. I couldn’t agree more about the need for firm foundations. Most of the selections I loved, but don’t think I’d have used Pandemonium or non-poetry or any poem whose form isn’t carried with clarity. I’m really iffy on that last point though. Alluding to the original poem is probably enough. Can’t make the case for poetry with non-poetry. Maybe consider Isaiah 28:16 or Psalm 127:1? It must have been tough to make selections, though. Some writing carries so much grandeur that they’re hard not to mention.

    We should note that much has changed in architectures in these 2,500 years, though I heartily agree human nature has not. Consider: English did not even exist in Horace’s time, right? Forms by which English poetry works are not quantitative, much to the vexation of English poets’ translations. Tradition is slow, not static. Life is always changing.

    It’s a really neat point to make about “solid of stone” and a really neat way that you make the point — someone is bound to mention that, say, the Freedom Tower or the Burj Khalifa aren’t made of stone at all, but stainless steel (basically). To which one rejoins: What about the foundation… Solid of stone.

    I think it unwise to poke at prose in order to support poetry. Especially since the majority of the bible is prose. But anyone can get carried away.

    Much has changed and much is changing. Beneath it all though, as you rightly mention and strongly defend, there is that ineffable something, that essence, that form by which we identify a poem as a poem and sense beauty as beauty, which has remained unchanged…

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