"This it is causes my distress . . .
So it will ever be unless
"New forms be found to supersede
The circle when occasions need.
"To carry it out I have tried and toiled,
And now perforce must own me foiled!
"Jeerers will say: 'Here was a man
Who could not end what he began!'"
- So passed that day, the next, the next;
The abbot scanned the task, perplexed;
The townsmen mustered all their wit
To fathom how to compass it,
But no raw artistries availed
Where practice in the craft had failed . . .
- One night he tossed, all open-eyed,
And early left his helpmeet's side.
Scattering the rushes of the floor
He wandered from the chamber door
And sought the sizing pile, whereon
Struck dimly a cadaverous dawn
Through freezing rain, that drenched the board
Of diagram-lines he last had scored -
Chalked phantasies in vain begot
To knife the architectural knot -
In front of which he dully stood,
Regarding them in hopeless mood.
He closelier looked; then looked again:
The chalk-scratched draught-board faced the rain,
Whose icicled drops deformed the lines
Innumerous of his lame designs,
So that they streamed in small white threads
From the upper segments to the heads
Of arcs below, uniting them
Each by a stalactitic stem.
- At once, with eyes that struck out sparks,
He adds accessory cusping-marks,
Then laughs aloud.
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