The marble waits, immaculate and rude;
Beside it stands the sculptor, lost in dreams.
With vague, chaotic forms his vision teems.
Fair shapes pursue him, only to elude
And mock his eager fancy. Lines of grace
And heavenly beauty vanish, and, behold!
Out through the Parian luster, pure and cold,
Glares the wild horror of a devil's face.
The clay is ready for the modeling.
The marble waits: how beautiful, how pure,
That gleaming substance, and it shall endure,
When dynasty and empire, throne and king
Have crumbled back to dust. Well may you pause,
Oh, sculptor-artist! and, before that mute,
Unshapen surface, stand irresolute!
Awful, indeed, are art's unchanging laws.
The thing you fashion out of senseless clay,
Transformed to marble, shall outlive your fame;
And, when no more is known your race, or name,
Men shall be moved by what you mold to-day.
We all are sculptors. By each act and thought,
We form the model. Time, the artisan,
Stands, with his chisel, fashioning the Man,
And stroke by stroke the masterpiece is wrought.
Angel or demon? Choose, and do not err!
For time but follows as you shape the mold,
And finishes in marble, stern and cold,
That statue of the soul, the character.
By wordless blessing, or by silent curse,
By act and motive,--so do you define
The image which time copies, line by line,
For the great gallery of the Universe.