To A Contemner Of The Past

You that would break with the Past,

rudWhy with so e a gesture take your leave?

None hinders, go your way; but wherefore cast

Contempt and boorish scorn

Upon the womb from which even you were born?

Begone in peace! Forbear to flout and grieve,

Vulgar iconoclast,

Those of a faith you cannot comprehend,

To whom the Past is as a lovely friend

Nobly grown old, yet nobly ever young;

The temple and the treasure-house of Time,

With gains immortal stored

Of dream and deed and song,

Since man from chaos first began to climb,

His lonely soul for sword.

O base and trivial tongue

That dares to mock this solemn heritage,

And foul this sacred page!

Sorry the future that hath you for sire!

And happy we who yet

Can bear the golden chimes from tower and spire

In the old heaven set,

And link our hands and hearts with the great dead

That lived with God for friend,

And drew strange sustenance from overhead,

And knew a bright beginning in life's end;

For all their earthly days

Were filled with meaning deeper than the hour.

Leave us our simple faith in star and flower,

And all our simple ways

Of prayer and praise,

And ancient virtues of humility,

Honour and reverence and the bended knee,

Old tenderness and gracious courtesies,

From Time so hardly won:

But you that no more have content in these,

From out our sanctuaries

Begone - and gladly gone!