<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="" class="head">To Sir William Watson</h1><h1 align="smallcaps" class="head">(On the Occasion of his Receiving an LL.D. from Aberdeen University)</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">NOT by such music as Amphion played;</p><p class="line">Not by the subtile silt of ancient seas</p><p class="line">Building an oozy rock by slow degrees,</p><p class="line">Terrace on terrace in the ocean shade,</p><p class="line">Not so the granite corner-stones were laid.</p><p class="line">But forged by Nature's procreant decrees,</p><p class="line">In roaring subterranean furnaces,</p><p class="line">Most painfully, most passionately made.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">They came forth molten. And each granite street,</p><p class="line">Each hoary pinnacle, and frosty spire,</p><p class="line">Remembering the fierce parturient heat,</p><p class="line">Hail the marmorean music of thy lyre,</p><p class="line">Forged by thy poet heart's impassioned heat</p><p class="line">In a crater's crimson crucible of fire.</p></div></body></html> · Great War