The poem
What time the meanest brick and stone Take on a beauty not their own, And past the flaw of builded wood Shines the intention whole and good, And all the little homes of man Rise to a dimmer, nobler span; When colour's absence gives escape To the deeper spirit of the shape,
-- Then earth's great architecture swells Among her mountains and her fells Under the moon to amplitude Massive and primitive and rude:
-- Then do the clouds like silver flags Stream out above the tattered crags, And black and silver all the coast Marshalls its hunched and rocky host, And headlands striding sombrely Buttress the land against the sea, -- The darkened land, the brightening wave -- And moonlight slants through Merlin's cave.