The Statues in the Block

“LOVE is the secret of the world,' he said;
'The cup we drain and still desire to drink.
The loadstone hungers for the steel; the steel,
Inert amid a million stones, responds to this.
So yearn and answer hearts that truly love:
Once touch their life-spring, it vibrates to death;
And twain athrill as one are nature-wed.'

But silent stood the three who heard, nor smiled
Nor looked agreement. Strangers these who stood
Within a Roman studio—still young,
But sobered each with that which follows joy
At life's fresh forenoon, and the eye of each
Held deep within a restless eager light,
As gleams a diamond in a darkened room
With radiance hoarded from the vanished sun.

'The meteor-stone is dense and dark in space,
But bursts in flame when through the air it rushes,
And our dull life is like an aerolite
That leaps to fire within the sphere of love.'
Unchecked his mood ran on: 'Sweet amorous hours
That lie in years as isles in tropic seas,
You spring to view as Art is born of Love,
And shape rich beauties in this marble block!'

Before them rose within the shaded light
A tall and shapely mass of Alp-white crystal
Fresh from the heart of a Carrara quarry.
'Opaque to you this marble; but to me,
Whose eyes the chrism of passion has anointed,
The stone is pregnant with a life of love.
Within this monolith there lives a form
Which I can see and would reveal to you,
Could hand and chisel swiftly follow sight.
From brow to foot her lissome form stands forth—
The ripe lips smiling reached; with nestling press,
As round the sailor frozen in the berg
The clear ice closes on the still dead face,
The marble, grown translucent, touches soft
Each comely feature—rippled hair, and chin,
And lily sweep of bust and hip and limb—
Ah, sweet mouth pouting for the lips that cling,
And white arms raised all quivering to the clasp—
Ah, rich throat made for .burning lover's kiss,
And reckless bodice open to the swell,
And deep eyes soft with love's suffusion—Love!
O Love! still living, memory and hope,
Beyond all sweets thy bosom, breath, and lips—
My jewel and the jewel of the world!'

They stood in silence, each one rapt and still,
As if the lovely form were theirs as his,
Till one began—harsh voice and clouded face—
With other presence in his eye—and said:
'Opaque to me with such a glow-worm ray
As Love's torch flings—but, mark, the dense rock melts
When from my soul on fire the fiercer beam,
The mighty calcium-glare of hate leaps out
And eats the circumambient marble—See!
Laid bare as corpse to keen anatomist,
With every sinuous muscle picked with shadow,
And every feature tense with livid passion,
And all the frame aheave with sanguine throbs—
The ecstasy of agonized Revenge!
0 stone, reveal it—how my parting kiss
Was wet upon her mouth when other lips
Drank deep the cursed fountain; how the coin
1 hung with rapture 'tween her glowing breasts,
And fondly thought if I should die and she
Should live till age had blanched her hair and flesh,
This golden medal's touch would still have power
To light the love-fire in the faded eyes
And swell the shriveled breast to maiden roundness—
This thought I nursed—O Stygian abyss!—
Away thy picture of the rippled hair!
Her hair was rippled and her eyes were deep,
Her breasts and limbs were white and lily-curved,
But all the woman, soul and wondrous flesh,
Was poison-steeped and veined with vicious fire;
And I, blind fool who trusted, was but one
Who swooned with love beside her—But I drank
The wine she filled, and made her eat the dregs—
I drenched her honey with my sea of gall.
I see her in the marble where she shrinks
In shuddered fear, as if my face were fire—
Her cowering shadow making whiter still
The face of him that writhes beside her feet.
I see him breathe, the last deep breath, and turn
His eyes upon me horror-filled—his hand,
Still hot with wanton dalliance, clutched hard
Across the burning murder in his side—
And now he sinks still glaring—And my heart
Is there between them, petrified, O God!
And pierced by that red blow that struck their guilt.
O balm and torture! he must hate who loves,
And bleed who strikes to see thy face, Revenge!'

Grown deep the silence for the words that died,
And paler still the marble for its grief.

'Ah, myrrh and honey!' spake a third, whose eyes
Were deep with sorrow for the woe; ' blind hands
That grope for flowers and pierce the flesh with thorns!
All love of woman still may turn to hate,