And, turning, saw the abbot, who The weather’s whim was watching too.
Onward to Prime the abbot went, Tacit upon the incident.
—Men now discerned as days revolved The ogive riddle had been solved;
Templates were cut, fresh lines were chalked Where lines had been defaced and balked,
And the work swelled and mounted higher, Achievement distancing desire;
Here jambs with transoms fixed between, Where never the like before had been—
There little mullions thinly sawn Where meeting circles once were drawn.
“We knew,” men said, “the thing would go After his craft-wit got aglow,
“And, once fulfilled what he has designed, We’ll honour him and his great mind!”
When matters stood thus poised awhile, And all surroundings shed a smile,
The master-mason on an eve Homed to his wife and seemed to grieve . . .
—“The abbot spoke to me to-day: He hangs about the works alway.
“He knows the source as well as I Of the new style men magnify.
“He said: ‘You pride yourself too much On your creation. Is it such?
“‘Surely the hand of God it is That conjured so, and only His!—
“‘Disclosing by the frost and rain Forms your invention chased in vain;
“‘Hence the devices deemed so great You copied, and did not create.’
“I feel the abbot’s words are just, And that all thanks renounce I must.
“Can a man welcome praise and pelf For hatching art that hatched itself? . . .
“So, I shall own the deft design Is Heaven’s outshaping, and not mine.”
“What!” said she. “Praise your works ensure To throw away, and quite obscure
“Your beaming and beneficent star? Better you leave things as they are!
“Why, think awhile. Had not your zest In your loved craft curtailed your rest—
“Had you not gone there ere the day The sun had melted all away!”
—But, though his good wife argued so, The mason let the people know
That not unaided sprang the thought Whereby the glorious fane was wrought,
But that by frost when dawn was dim The method was disclosed to him.
“Yet,” said the townspeople thereat, “’Tis your own doing, even with that!”
But he—chafed, childlike, in extremes— The temperament of men of dreams—
Aloofly scrupled to admit That he did aught but borrow it,
And diffidently made request That with the abbot all should rest.
—As none could doubt the abbot’s word, Or question what the church averred,