Ruth Tuck

‘Build Thee more stately mansions,

O my soul.’

The Scottish voice made music of the poem;

Each word relished and separate.

A stepping stone to that heaven more vast,

The blue eyes visioning the endless shores.

She stood there, looking over the heads of

Placid, unseeing art students;

Her Quaker grey linen brave with

small grey embroideries,

And the painted brooch;

The bottom lip proud but quivering.

Between us and the noisy city

were shuttered doors;

Above us was the plastered dome,

A shabby relic of past glory.

The blue eyes ranged a world beyond

Our time and space;

The skies were those of Giotto in Padua,

The lawns were scattered with Angelica’s flowers,

The air was warmed by Vincent’s spinning suns,

The man was seen as noble,

Praising God along with Blake’s angels;

And we, dumb students, not understanding all,

Were blessed with refreshing, intoxicating, cleansing

winds from Heaven.

The Oliver Wendell Holmes poem:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea.

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