Ah! come in; I need your aid. 
Bring-your tools, as then I said.—­
There, my friend, build up that niche. 
“Pardon me, my lord, but which?”
That, in which I stood this minute;
That one with the picture in it.—­
“The window, do you mean, my lord? 
Such, few mansions can afford! 
Picture is it?  ’Tis a show
Picture seldom can bestow! 
City palaces and towers,
Forest depths of floating pines,
Sloping gardens, shadowed bowers;
Use with beauty here combines.” 
True, my friend, seen with your eyes: 
But in mine ’tis other quite: 
In that niche the dead world lies,
Shadowed over with the night. 
In that tomb I’ll wall it out;
Where, with silence all about,
Startled only by decay
As the ancient bonds give way,
Sepulchred in all its charms,
Circled in Death’s nursing arms,
Mouldering without a cross,
It may feed itself on loss.

[Sidenote:  The Devil Contempt whistling through the mouth of the Saint Renunciation.]

Now go on, lay stone on stone,
I will neither sigh nor moan.—­
Whither, whither, Heart of good?

[Sidenote:  Repentance.]

Art thou not, in this thy mood,
One of evil, priestly band,
With dark robes and lifted hand,
Square-faced, stony-visaged men,
In a narrow vaulted den,
Watching, by the cresset dun,
A wild-eyed, pale-faced, staring nun,
Who beholds, as, row by row,
Grows her niche’s choking wall,
The blood-red tide of hell below
Surge in billowy rise and fall?

[Sidenote:  Dying unto sin]

Yet build on; for it is I
To the world would gladly die;
To the hopes and fears it gave me,
To the love that would enslave me,
To the voice of blame it raises,
To the music of its praises,
To its judgments and its favours,
To its cares and its endeavours,
To the traitor-self that opes
Secret gates to cunning hopes;—­
Dying unto all this need,
I shall live a life indeed;
Dying unto thee, O Death,
Is to live by God’s own breath. 
Therefore thus I close my eyes,
Thus I die unto the world;
Thus to me the same world dies,
Laid aside, a map upfurled. 
Keep me, God, from poor disdain: 
When to light I rise again,
With a new exultant life
Born in sorrow and in strife,
Born of Truth and words divine,
I will see thee yet again,
Dwell in thee, old world of mine,
Aid the life within thy men,
Helping them to die to thee,
And walk with white feet, radiant, free;
Live in thee, not on thy love,
Breathing air from heaven above.

[Sidenote:  Regret at the memory of Beauty, and Appreciation, and Praise.]