Giving Up the World

So, from the ruins of the world alone
Can Heaven be builded? Oh,
What other temples must be overthrown,
Founded in sand or snow!

But, Heaven cannot be built with jeweled hands?
Then, from my own I wring
Glitter of gold, the gifts of many lands;
The seas their pearls I fling.

Heaven must be hung with pictures of the dead?
The shroud must robe the saint?
Never one halo round a living head
Did Raphael dare to paint?

Heaven must have flowers: — after the worm has crossed
Their blush, the wind their breath?
After the utter silence of the frost
Has made them white with death?

Heaven must have music: — but the birds that sing
In that divinest nest
Thither must waver, wounded in the wing
And wounded in the breast?

Heaven must he lighted — at the fallen light
Of moon and star and sun?
Ah me, since these have made the earth too bright,
Let the dark Will be done!