A CORNERSTONE

See,  
That stone  
By nadir marred,  
By murk furred,  
By haze cocooned,  
Like a straw,  
By gale of fate buffetted,  
By tongues of skeptics, for  
Eras a meretricious folk christened.  
By tunic of shame decked,  
Like a serf,  
By dearth for myriads  
Of eras snared.  
 
Has,  
By mettle  
A pearl become.  
By the hearth of cruel fate,  
A gold with an ineffable glaring  
Light become.  
And nigh and distant tribes  
On its glaring light  
From the beset of darkness  
Hasten to belay.  
And their erreneous ethos  
Their lips dither not to recant  
For the stone, a cornerstone  
Has become.