Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE STATUARY, by VICTOR GUSTAVE PLARR



Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE STATUARY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Mong purple deeps and foam-engirdled shallows
Last Line: Till now his fame to the four winds is blown.
Subject(s): Craftsmanship; Labor & Laborers; Old Age; Work; Workers


'Mong purple deeps and foam-engirdled shallows,
In the old Aegean, on an island hill,
I know not if some dim tradition hallows
The site of an evanished city still,

Where, long ago, there lived, and toiled, and perished
That nameless master of the Pheidian stone,
Whose handywork some secret god has cherished
Till now his fame to the four winds is blown.

Oh, hard the path and bitter of attaining
Which leads to such a long-belated fame;
Grievous the glorious toil which leaves remaining
Not ev'n the shadow of the toiler's name!

Surely he was a dreamer 'mong his brothers,
A painful outcast from his race and time,
Whose life, alas, you can re-shape from others
As greatly wretched in each age and clime.

Ah, how he toiled! No music at his portal,
No passing laughter or clear bridal song,
Could charm him from his communing immortal
The lustrous fictions of his brain among.

The little children singing through the city
Could win no word, no greeting from his mouth:
He was unmoved by irony of pity,
Or the blithe heart's-ease of that ancient South.

For, on a day, pacing in forest hoary,
Far from the joys and cavillings of Man,
He had been blinded by an untold glory,
He had been maddened by the strains of Pan,

And a great throng had passed him as he wondered,
Ev'n of the gods in their transcendent grace:
The bolts within bright Phœbus' quiver thundered,
And loosened raiment swept athwart his face,

One moment: for the high gods in derision
Filled him with torturing phrenzy, and his soul
Bade him, from that day forth, record his vision
In some divine and never-dying whole.

The sun-shafts smote athwart his vine-clad casement;
The moon looked on him through the breathing night;
But he toiled on, unheeding, in debasement,
In ecstasy, in anguish, in delight.

Suns, moons, and stars, and seasons passed unnumbered
Over his toil, nor shaped the toiler's lot.
His spirit woke and watched: when others slumbered
His art wrought on alone and slumbered not.

Youth passed, age came, and his rapt face grew haggard,
And hunger in his hushed house watched with him.
'We die,' he said at last, 'and I, a laggard,
Droop in the strife for fainting heart and limb.'

'Thou must be strong, O heart, in this endeavour!
One more surpassing struggle overpast,
One day, one night, then, O mine heart, for ever
Our toil shall live, and we have rest at last!

The tender moonlight streaming through the casement
Shines on a statue, lovely past our thought:
A mortal craftsman stands in mute amazement
'Fore the strange splendour his frail hands have wrought.

There enter some, when the earliest light is creeping
Toward the goddess o'er the dusty floor,
To blame, as is their wont, but he is sleeping:
He recks not of your guidance any more!

So in that city lived, and toiled, and perished,
That nameless master of the Pheidian stone,
Whose handywork some secret god has cherished
Till now his fame to the four winds is blown.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...



Home: PoetryExplorer.net