Poems (Piatt)/Volume 1/Marble or Dust?

by Sarah Piatt

MARBLE OR DUST?

A child, beside a statue, said to me,
 With pretty wisdom very sadly just,
"That man is Mr. Lincoln, Mama. He
 Was made of marble; we are made of dust."

One flash of passionate sorrow trembled through
 The dust of which I had been dimly made,
One fierce, quick wish to be of marble too—
 Not something meaner, that must fall and fade.

"To be for ever fair and still and cold,"
 I faintly thought, with faint tears in my sight;
"To stand thus face to face with Time, and hold
 Between us that uncrumbling charm of white;

"To see the creatures formed of slighter stuff
 Waver in little dead-leaf whirls away,
Yet know that I could wait and have enough
 Of frost and dew, enough of dark and day.

. . . "I would be marble? Wherefore? Just to miss
 The tremors of glad pain that dust must know?—
The grief that settles after some dead kiss?—
 The frown that was a smile not long ago?

"Do I forget the stone's long loneliness—
 The dumb impatience all wan watching brings?—
The looking with blind eyes, in vague distress,
 For Christ's slow Coming and the End of Things?

"No, boy of mine, with your young yellow hair,
 Better the dust you scatter with your feet
Than marble, which can see not you are fair—
 Than marble, which can feel not you are sweet.

"Ay, or than marble which must meet the years
 Without my light relief of murmurous breath;
Without the bitter sweetness of my tears—
 Without the love which dust must have for Death."