The palm-house in Belfast’s Botanic Gardens
Was built before Kew 
In the spirit that means outdo
The modern by the more modern.

That iron be beaten, and glass
Bent to our will,
That heaven be brought closer still
And we converse with the angels.

The palm-house has now run to seed;
Rusting girders, a missing pane
Through which some delicate tree
Led by kindly light
Would seem at last to have broken through.
We have excelled ourselves again.