University of Virginia Library


321

THE STATUE

White, pure, superb, entrancing to the eye,
What living form can emulate or vie
With this divine Psyche?
Greek art is just the soul of God made clear,
Undraped,—his message to the human ear
Fresh from his burning lips eternally.
In the white perfect figure, nobly shaped,
Revealed for ever, beautiful, undraped,
Unmarred, unstained, divine,
There is a gospel hidden. If we will seek,
God preaches through the stately curve of cheek
And through each limb's inevitable line.
This is God's gospel written in white stone.—
Not on the Sinaitic Mount alone
He thundered, through the storm.
He speaks to mankind's spiritual sense
Through beauty, and through the mystery intense
That seems to robe an unrobed perfect form.