Ralph Waldo Emerson — The House

There is no architect         Can build as the Muse can; She is skilful to select         Materials for her plan; Slow and warily to choose         Rafters of immortal pine, Or cedar incorruptible,         Worthy her design, She threads dark Alpine forests         Or valleys by the sea, In many lands, with painful steps,         Ere she can find a tree. She ransacks mines and ledges         And quarries every rock, To hew the famous adamant         For each eternal block— She lays her beams in music,         In music every one, To the cadence of the whirling world         Which dances round the sun— That so they shall not be displaced         By lapses or by wars, But for the love of happy souls         Outlive the newest stars.