Cathedral Builders by John Ormond

Analysis of the poem

Cathedral Builders by John Ormond is a modern poem that looks at the builders of a cathedral in a realistic manner. The poem reminds us about the builders of our ancient Dagabas and the hardships they must have encountered in building those colossal religious monuments. In this poem, the poet has created a tone of optimism and pride, and the relationships between the men who built the Cathedral, their families and their fellow workers, invites you to envision their lives. 

In the first verse, when the men are young, the impression the poet has created is that of energy, strength and courage. The poet has created this image with careful use of language, such as the alliteration of “hoisted hewn…heaven”, in the second line, and the words, “defied gravity, deified stone” which makes the reader think of heavy stone being lifted with apparent ease and enthusiasm. The descriptive language used is active in such a way as to involve the reader in the worker’s lives to such an extent that we learn of their families and their lives away from the building site, which creates an empathy with them on a more personal level. 

By talking about their lives, their suppers, their “smelly wives” and other similar instances of every day things, we gain an insight into their routine, which seems to last for most of their lives. By the third verse the men have grown older-“greyer, shakier, became less inclined to fix a neighbour’s roof of a fine evening,”. The use of colloquial language in this line seems like the way these people would have talked to one another and makes the reader feel a connection, a parallel between their lives and ours through a common language. 

In the fourth verse the Cathedral is almost complete, and the words of the first line show this; “Saw naves sprout arches, clerestories soar”. This lofty language heightens the sense of achievement felt by the workers, and creates an image of what the cathedral looks like at this point in time. 

The brief treatment of what must have been major events in the lives of others, such as “escaping the plague” indicates how little such things mattered to the men, outside their life’s work, where every day they “took to the ladders again”. Eventually, only the advent of old age, and the associated aches and pains make them “decide it was time to give it up.” This is use of the workers own speech, as if they themselves were telling the reader their reasons, and their feelings of acceptance of the end of their own youth and lives. 

By the last verse the narrative voice is no longer the poet’s- it is the men themselves telling us their story, how at the consecration, the culmination of their life’s work, feels like such an immense achievement that when they look upon it in all its glory, they claim ownership for themselves with the final sentence- “I bloody did that!” 

The feeling of familiarity and achievement the poem creates makes the reader feel optimistic and uplifted through the use of carefully chosen words, a similar technique employed by Robert Frost, in his poem The Road Not Taken. 

In this poem the poet tries to understand and justify the choices he has made throughout his life, and tries to explain what made him choose the path he took.