His last building.The Mausoleum.
A pagan rotunda,simple and austere,
Embellished with Doric colonnade.
Pure form and ancient practice
Exalt the Whig cause
And Lord Carlisle’s aspirations,
Subjecting faith to reason,
Government to freedom.
The aged Hawsmoor hobbles
Round the summit,
His gout anaesthetized by joy
At seeing his plans realized.
Platonism and magic are declining:
Democracy can be built in stone,
Empirical and plain,
A new man, a new constitution.
Death is breathing down his neck now;
He feels it,there,continually,
Not to be chased off by faith or science.
Mason on the square of time,
He holds in his hands
The consolation of stone,
The mystery.
The seen and the unseen
Put him to work,
Reconstructing the Temple of Solomon,
The palaces of Xanadu.
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