Poems (Hoffman)/The Statue
THE STATUE
She stands where multitudes assembling Cast at her feet their flatteries,Pulseless, amid the throbbing, trembling Of human nerves and arteries.
The sculptured marble at her feet Is swept by folds of shimmering satinAnd careless silvery tongues repeat Her motto's gilded Latin.
Wealth is her daily, hourly guest, Want at her shrine delights to linger;None leave her presence cursed or blessed By one fair, faultless, frozen finger.
Despair, in gaiety's disguise From the dark alleys of the cityWrithing in guilt's dread agonies Wakes in her breast, no scorn, no pity.
None, common sisterhood may claim For sympathy in sorrow's story,Of all whose beauty is her fame Whose image is her glory.
Curses and prayers are one to her, Virtue and vice, and woe, and gladnessFail in her stony heart to stir Throbbings of joy or sadness.
Fever may never flush her cheek Or pain distort her chiseled featuresAnd stony cold the lips that speak No word to cheer her fellow-creatures.
To her, love, sorrow, want, may turn But vain and useless their appealing;Why should she human sorrow learn Who hath no smile of healing?
O beautiful, proud masterpiece On whom all eyes in joy are gazing!O queenly form! O angel face, Whose symmetry all lips are praising!
Are there not some who pass thee by In whose frail form thy stone is molded,Whose prayer is like a smothered cry Forever in their hearts close folded?
To watch the sun of day decline Like thee, with orbs of stony blindness,With features as unmoved as thine, To taste the bitter of unkindness?
To drink no more with trembling lips The bitter, brimming cup of anguish'Midst the dark shades of life's eclipse No more in fear and dread to languish?
Unmarred by age or care to keep Youth's molded form, Youth's chiseled beauty,Above no cruel bonds to weep That hold them slave to love or duty?
To answer love with stony gaze, And hate with calm and mute defianceUnmoved, unchanged by slight or praise Strong in a nerveless self-reliance?
O sculptor! well thy task is done Unto the dead existence giving;So marvelous that lifeless stone Becomes the envy of the living.
O statue! sinless, heartless, blind, Mock, pity, hate us who are human;No sufferer in thee may find The sympathy and love of woman.
Better to know pain's cruel rack, To feel life's fiery furnace feverThan bloodless, nerveless, live and lack The heart's high hope, the soul's endeavor.
Better to feel remorse's pangs And vain regrets and dark despairing,And slander's poison serpent fangs, And see earth's wrong and see it, caring,
Than never know the recompense Of earnest toil and noble striving,Than never feel in holiest sense The love, the hope, the joy of living.
Better to welcome age with brow Grown furrowed in the path of dutyThan stand as thou art standing now In statuesque and useless beauty.
Who'd be a statue wrought of gold Worthy the worship of a pagan,Glistening with jewels manifold, Costlier far than Baal or Dagon?