Imposing pile of pale and polished stone,

Cathedral-like in thy solemnity,

Thy rectilinear grandeur awes my soul,

And makes me shudder!

Monstrous sacrilege, O when before

Has thing so big been made for end so small?

Unholy Temple of the priests of lucre,

How most appropriate thy pallor is,

So like in color to the tint of bones—

Thy slender, upright lines so much like bones—

So much like children’s bones.

How like unto the pyramids thou art;

The tyrants’ tombs, built by a million slaves.

And like the pyramids, ere long

Thou’lt be the relic of an age gone by.