The Book of American Negro Poetry

Sculptured Worship

The zones of warmth around his heart,

No alien airs had crossed;

But he awoke one morn to feel

The magic numbness of autumnal frost.

His thoughts were a loose skein of threads,

And tangled emotions, vague and dim;

And sacrificing what he loved

He lost the dearest part of him.

In sculptured worship now he lives,

His one desire a prisoned ache;

If he can never melt again

His very heart will break.