Library of the best American literature / Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers

by Unknown

The hand that rounded Peter’s dome,

And groin’d the aisles of Christian Rome,

Wrought in a sad sincerity.

Himself from God he could not free;

He builded better than he knew,

The conscious stone to beauty grew.

Know’st thou what wove yon wood-bird’s nest

Of leaves, and feathers from her breast;

Or how the fish outbuilt her shell,

Painting with morn each annual cell;