Classic Poem

( TWO STATUES IN THE TRIBUNA HALL OF THE UFFIZI GALLERY )

Here in this glowing hall of treasures
An unknown force keeps drawing me
To thee, celestial Aphrodite,
And, dusky Knife-Grinder, to thee.

How is it ye are such near neighbors, —
I've often puzzled what it meant, —
Thou, the all-wondrous Queen of Beauty,
And thou, plebeian, coarse and bent?

Ah, loveliness of form but dwells with
Its opposite in halls of Art,
As in the world the life of Beauty
With Toil and Pain, its counterpart.

Dame Aphrodite shuts her ears to
All sounds that do not harmonize,
Her skin of alabaster shivers
When aught that 's ugly meets her eyes.

The World, which struggles, fights, and suffers,
Is hushed before her haughty feet,
As on her native isle of Cyprus
Unheard the muffled billows beat.

Not for the strife of clay-born creatures
She leaves her cold security;
One law she knows — the Law of Beauty,
One goal — her own fair destiny.

Her way fits well with that of mortals
Who polish every line uncouth
Of Life's deep-furrowed pain and passion
Till all at last is marble-smooth.

A gulf divides her from yon fellow,
The thrall her neighbor bending here
Above his knife, that is not sharpened,
Though 't 'as been ground a thousand year.

As she from sea-foam rainbow-tinted,
So he is sprung from common earth;
With sweat and blood the soil was leavened
From which his giant form had birth.

Look at his great rough thews, his muscles
Gnarled by the fate he needs must face;
Look at his hand, which toil has twisted
So far from beauty and from grace!

An exhortation hovers o'er him,
A half-born thought, a broken tone:
" Arise, thou yoke-tormented being,
The earth thou stand'st on is thine own! "

Each elemental force unbridled
Incites and tempts the giant on:
" Take our example, " says their roaring.
But woe to us! if that were done.

Is there no Bridge-of-Reconciling,
Can none between such neighbors be?
Will she, the proud one, never soften
And go to him with sympathy?

Will Beauty, from the People severed,
Go on thus with her selfish life?
Will never he who kneels beside her
Be done with grinding at his knife?

Step down, O Art, our Aphrodite,
From thy cold height to his relief,
And let thy stone-hard heart be melted
To learn of human joy and grief!

Descend in love unto thy brother
To loosen Labor's galling band,
To dry the sweat from off his forehead
And wrench the dagger from his hand!