{"id":1563,"date":"2011-12-14T20:07:08","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T04:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/?p=1563"},"modified":"2011-12-14T20:07:08","modified_gmt":"2011-12-15T04:07:08","slug":"the-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/reinhardkargl.com\/iBlog\/2011\/12\/14\/the-palace\/","title":{"rendered":"The Palace"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Rudyard Kipling<\/a> :. 1902<\/p>\n

WHEN I was a King and a Mason – a Master proven and skilled
\nI cleared me ground for a Palace such as a King should build.
\nI decreed and dug down to my levels. Presently under the silt
\nI came on the wreck of a Palace such as a King had built.<\/p>\n

There was no worth in the fashion – there was no wit in the plan –
\nHither and thither, aimless, the ruined footings ran –
\nMasonry, brute, mishandled, but carven on every stone:
\n“After me cometh a Builder. Tell him I too have known.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Swift to my use in the trenches, where my well-planned ground-works grew,
\nI tumbled his quoins and his ashlars, and cut and reset them anew.
\nLime I milled of his marbles; burned it slacked it, and spread;
\nTaking and living at pleasure the gifts of the humble dead.<\/p>\n

Yet I despised not nor gloried; yet, as we wrenched them apart,
\nI read in the razed foundations the heart of that builder\u2019s heart.
\nAs he had written and pleaded, so did I understand
\nThe form of the dream he had followed in the face of the thing he had planned.<\/p>\n

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When I was a King and a Mason, in the open noon of my pride,
\nThey sent me a Word from the Darkness. They whispered and called me aside.
\nThey said – “The end is forbidden.” They said – “Thy use is fulfilled.
\nThy Palace shall stand as that other\u2019s – the spoil of a King who shall build.”<\/p>\n

I called my men from my trenches, my quarries my wharves and my sheers.
\nAll I had wrought I abandoned to the faith of the faithless years.
\nOnly I cut on the timber – only I carved on the stone:
\n“After me cometh a Builder. Tell him, I too have known.” <\/em><\/p>\n

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