Classic Poem

Once ... I seem to remember....
Crept in the noonday heat
A boy with a crooked shadow
Which capered along the street.
A boy whose shadow was mocked at
By the children passing along,
Straight and tall and beautiful,
Happy with laughter and song.
So, he envied their beauty....
He who was crooked and brown....
The strong youths of the mountain,
The white girls of the town,
Envied their happy meetings
And the tender words they spoke
In the shadow of the temples,
Under the groves of oak.
And his lonely heart was stricken
That never his lot might be
To walk with a maid who loved him....
So quaint and crooked was he.


II

Thus was my heart once stricken
And I repined for a while,
I but a boy in years,
Who longed for a maiden's smile.
Till once on a day in summer
My soul was touched with a gleam,
And I woke from my morbid fancies
Like one from an evil dream,
And knew that the gods in their wisdom
Had made and set me apart.
Lean, misshapen, and ugly....
No toy for a maiden's heart.
And I felt with a heart awakened
That leapt in a riot of joy,
The heart of a wise man and proud
Not the heart of a moody boy.
Viewing the old things anew
With an inner wonder in each:
The cloud ships driven thro' heaven,
The sea rolling into the beach,
The magic heart of the woodland,
The loves of nymph and faun,
The splendour of starlight nights,
The calm inviolate dawn.


III

Thus was my spirit quickened,
And once on a lucky day
I drew a bird on plaster,
And modelled a horse in clay;
Kneeling under a wall
Where a shadow fell on the street,
Eyes and mind intent
In the midst of the noonday heat.
Eyes and mind intent....
And a stranger passed my way,
... The shadow grew and lengthened
As he stopped to watch my play.
He looked at the little horse,
He looked at the winging bird;
And ere I noticed his presence
He touched me and spoke a word:
"Hast thou the mind and will
As thou hast hand and sight...?
Follow me if thou hast
And climb ... oh! climb to the height."


IV

So I followed him to his workshop
And stayed there a year and a year
Working under a master
Who praised me and held me dear,
Till at last a day arose
When, taking my hand in his own,
"You have my knowledge," he said,
"And now you must stand alone."
And tho' I sorrowed to leave him
My heart was ready to sing,
So first in praise of the gods
I made for an offering
(Even as does a shepherd
His rustic altar of sods)
Bright forms larger than human
As mortals dream of the gods.
Then, in my strange world-worship,
The Tritons, Lords of the Sea,
The creatures which haunt the woodland,
Happy and shy and free,
Nymphs and satyrs and fauns
Who worship the great god Pan,
And lastly the mighty heroes
Who fashion the mind of man.


V

Thus thought I and thus wrought I,
And my power grew greater still.
I rose to the heights of passion
And sounded the depths of will,
Reaching out to the farthest
Winnowing down to the last,
Gazing into the future
And diving into the past.
Higher and ever higher
Like an eagle soared my art
And I praised the most high gods
Who made and set me apart.
And Prince and poet and painter
Travelled to touch my hand,
The minds which had toiled and suffered,
The minds which could understand,
Marvelling in my workshop
At the shining forms they saw....
The children of my spirit
Born of a higher law.


VI

But last on a day in summer
(An evil day it seems)
I thought, "I will fashion a woman
As I have seen in dreams.
I, who never loved woman
That breathed and spoke and moved,
Will fashion a noble statue
To show what I could have loved;
A glorious naked figure
Untouched by time or fate,
A symbol of all that might be
And she shall be my mate.
Not mate of my crooked body,
Lean, misshapen and brown,
(No longer I feared my shadow
But walked a prince in the town)
But mate for my glorious spirit
Winging thro' shimmering heights,
On the viewless pinions of fancy
Where none can follow its flights."
Thus was I moved in spirit
And wrought, a happy slave,
Striving to make the best
Of the gifts the high gods gave,
Fashioning out of the marble,
--And I knew my work was good--
The arms and the breasts and the thighs
And the glory of womanhood.


VII

Lo! the statue is finished.
Look how it stands serene
A woman with tender smile
And proud eyes of a queen!
Lo! the statue is perfect....
Flower and crown of my life....
I who never loved woman
Could take this woman for wife....
Her, my Galatea,
My wonderful milk-white friend,
Work of my hand and brain
Linked to this noble end.


VIII

The statue stands above me,
Flower and crown of my art....
But would that the gods had made me
As others, not set me apart.
For what, in the measure of life,
Is work on a lower plane?
And this the finest, brightest--
Further I cannot attain.
Shall I grind its beauty to fragments
Or shatter its symmetry?--
For I have made it in secret
And none has seen it but me.
My hand would falter and fail--
Oh! ... I could not forget.
I still should see it in dreams
With a passion of regret.
Or ... Shall I wait till morning
White-winged over the land,
Ere the fishermen tramp the beach
And drag their boats to the sand;
And find at last ... oh! at last
A boon denied to me,
Rest in the ever-restless,
The huge, unquiet sea,
That the brain may be freed from toil
Which has toiled to a luckless end
When it touched its highest powers
And shaped my milk-white friend.


IX

For a dream is only a dream,
(My best and my last stands there)
And a stone is only a stone,
Be it carven beyond compare,
And the veriest hind of the field
Who sweats for his hungry brood,
Has a deeper knowledge than I
Of our mortal evil and good.
Oh! gods, if ever I sought you,
And found you, terrible lords,
Zeus in the rattling thunder,
Ares in din of swords;
And thou, wise grey-eyed lady,
Who lovest the sober mean,
Reason and grave discourses,
A tempered mind and serene,
You have I duly honoured--
Yet one have I kept apart,
(Lean, misshapen, and ugly
No toy for a maiden's heart).
"Oh! foam-begotten and smiling,
Oh, perilous child of the sea--
Forgive--ere too late--and befriend me!
What am I--what is life without thee?"
And his prayer went up like a vapour
To the palace above the snows,
Where the shining gods held revel,
And deathless laughter arose.
But Hupnos swiftly descended
Like a noiseless bird of the night
And brushed his eyes with pinions
Downy and thick and light,
Circled dimly about him,
And brushed his eyes as he prayed
Laying a drowsy mandate,
And the watcher drooped and obeyed.


X

In at the workshop windows
Peacefully stole the dawn;
Tinting the marble figures
Of wood-nymph, goddess and faun,
Broadening in a streamer
Which touched with a rosy glow
The still white form of the statue,
The sleeper kneeling below.
... She moved as the red light touched her
And life stirred under her hair,
A little shiver ran over
Her glorious limbs all bare.
Thro' arms and breasts and thighs
The warm blood pulsed and ran:
And she stepped down from the pedestal--
A woman unto a man;
Saying in tender accents
Of low and musical tone:
"Oh! sleeper, wake from thy slumber
No longer art thou alone...."