Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE STATUES IN THE MUSEUM by FLORENCE WILKINSON EVANS

First Line: STATUES OF FAUNS AND WRESTLERS
Last Line: WHO DO NOT KNOW.
Subject(s): MUSEUMS; STATUES; WELLESLEY COLLEGE; ART GALLERYS;
STATUES of fauns and wrestlers,
Marble-chill nereids,
Centaurs, bacchante,
Aloof you look and lonely,
Stripped exiles from those sapphire coasts
Of long ago.

Ye carven gods and symbols
Of occult things and awful,
Serapis, Pallas, Peitho,
Speechless you stand and humbled,
Without one kneeling suppliant
Or votive lamp aglow.

Where are your fluted temples
Of Paestum or Girgenti,
Altar and wreathed oxen,
Veiled whirling priestesses
And the vase-bearing worshipers
Shouting Aioh?

Instead, a rigid hallway
Where, pagan, antique, wistful,
You stand, stared at and jostled
By mad new hurrying peoples
With pinched and smileless visages
Who do not know.



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