University of Virginia Library


19

XVII.
THE ROSIER STATUE

This hath been given, that the thing I sought
I have also found: a flower I might love,
A bird to sing to,—soft as any dove,
And supple, and as wayward as a thought.
Towards me such a worship hath been brought,
And is it not enough? I might have sighed
For such a vision vainly till I died,
Building my silent statue all for nought.
It is not so; God gives me better things:—
The stone is moved and flushes, and I see
No longer a white maid with marble wings,
A cold ideal rounded mournfully,
A shape to which thought's speechless chisel clings,
But living woman's ripe reality.