IV

So I followed him to his workshop

And stayed there a year and a year

Working under a master

Who praised me and held me dear,

Till at last a day arose

When, taking my hand in his own,

"You have my knowledge," he said,

"And now you must stand alone."

And tho' I sorrowed to leave him

My heart was ready to sing,

So first in praise of the gods

I made for an offering

(Even as does a shepherd

His rustic altar of sods)

Bright forms larger than human

As mortals dream of the gods.

Then, in my strange world-worship,

The Tritons, Lords of the Sea,

The creatures which haunt the woodland,

Happy and shy and free,

Nymphs and satyrs and fauns

Who worship the great god Pan,

And lastly the mighty heroes

Who fashion the mind of man.

V

Thus thought I and thus wrought I,

And my power grew greater still.

I rose to the heights of passion

And sounded the depths of will,

Reaching out to the farthest

Winnowing down to the last,

Gazing into the future

And diving into the past.

Higher and ever higher

Like an eagle soared my art

And I praised the most high gods

Who made and set me apart.

And Prince and poet and painter

Travelled to touch my hand,

The minds which had toiled and suffered,

The minds which could understand,

Marvelling in my workshop

At the shining forms they saw....

The children of my spirit

Born of a higher law.

VI

But last on a day in summer

(An evil day it seems)

I thought, "I will fashion a woman

As I have seen in dreams.

I, who never loved woman

That breathed and spoke and moved,

Will fashion a noble statue

To show what I could have loved;

A glorious naked figure

Untouched by time or fate,

A symbol of all that might be

And she shall be my mate.

Not mate of my crooked body,

Lean, misshapen and brown,

(No longer I feared my shadow

But walked a prince in the town)

But mate for my glorious spirit

Winging thro' shimmering heights,

On the viewless pinions of fancy

Where none can follow its flights."

Thus was I moved in spirit

And wrought, a happy slave,

Striving to make the best

Of the gifts the high gods gave,

Fashioning out of the marble,

—And I knew my work was good—

The arms and the breasts and the thighs

And the glory of womanhood.

VII

Lo! the statue is finished.

Look how it stands serene

A woman with tender smile

And proud eyes of a queen!

Lo! the statue is perfect....

Flower and crown of my life....

I who never loved woman

Could take this woman for wife....

Her, my Galatea,

My wonderful milk-white friend,

Work of my hand and brain

Linked to this noble end.

VIII

The statue stands above me,

Flower and crown of my art....

But would that the gods had made me

As others, not set me apart.

For what, in the measure of life,

Is work on a lower plane?

And this the finest, brightest—

Further I cannot attain.

Shall I grind its beauty to fragments

Or shatter its symmetry?—

For I have made it in secret

And none has seen it but me.

My hand would falter and fail—

Oh! ... I could not forget.

I still should see it in dreams

With a passion of regret.

Or ... Shall I wait till morning

White-winged over the land,

Ere the fishermen tramp the beach

And drag their boats to the sand;

And find at last ... oh! at last

A boon denied to me,

Rest in the ever-restless,

The huge, unquiet sea,

That the brain may be freed from toil

Which has toiled to a luckless end

When it touched its highest powers

And shaped my milk-white friend.

IX

For a dream is only a dream,

(My best and my last stands there)

And a stone is only a stone,

Be it carven beyond compare,

And the veriest hind of the field

Who sweats for his hungry brood,

Has a deeper knowledge than I

Of our mortal evil and good.

Oh! gods, if ever I sought you,

And found you, terrible lords,

Zeus in the rattling thunder,

Ares in din of swords;

And thou, wise grey-eyed lady,

Who lovest the sober mean,

Reason and grave discourses,

A tempered mind and serene,

You have I duly honoured—

Yet one have I kept apart,

(Lean, misshapen, and ugly

No toy for a maiden's heart).

"Oh! foam-begotten and smiling,

Oh, perilous child of the sea—

Forgive—ere too late—and befriend me!

What am I—what is life without thee?"

And his prayer went up like a vapour

To the palace above the snows,

Where the shining gods held revel,

And deathless laughter arose.

But Hupnos swiftly descended

Like a noiseless bird of the night

And brushed his eyes with pinions

Downy and thick and light,

Circled dimly about him,

And brushed his eyes as he prayed

Laying a drowsy mandate,

And the watcher drooped and obeyed.

X

In at the workshop windows

Peacefully stole the dawn;

Tinting the marble figures

Of wood-nymph, goddess and faun,

Broadening in a streamer

Which touched with a rosy glow

The still white form of the statue,

The sleeper kneeling below.

... She moved as the red light touched her

And life stirred under her hair,

A little shiver ran over

Her glorious limbs all bare.

Thro' arms and breasts and thighs

The warm blood pulsed and ran:

And she stepped down from the pedestal—

A woman unto a man;

Saying in tender accents

Of low and musical tone:

"Oh! sleeper, wake from thy slumber

No longer art thou alone...."