 | Poems by James Rhoades |  |
81
PYGMALION'S STATUE.
O that story of the statue!
Statue shaped with art so rare
That your sculptor, gazing at you,
Loved, in spite of the despair,
Till sweet Art took Nature's breath,
Lent you life, and gave you death!
Statue shaped with art so rare
That your sculptor, gazing at you,
Loved, in spite of the despair,
Till sweet Art took Nature's breath,
Lent you life, and gave you death!
While he sighed “Ah! fond beginner,
If indeed your hands wrought well,
Beauty should catch life within her—
Bird-like break its ivory shell”—
One more touch—her breast behold!
Tremulous in the garment's fold.
If indeed your hands wrought well,
Beauty should catch life within her—
Bird-like break its ivory shell”—
One more touch—her breast behold!
Tremulous in the garment's fold.
82
But while fear and rapture mingled,
And the swift surprise of seeing,
How those shuddering pulses tingled
With the first faint flush of being,
Out he bursts with sudden cry—
“She will change, grow old, and die.”
And the swift surprise of seeing,
How those shuddering pulses tingled
With the first faint flush of being,
Out he bursts with sudden cry—
“She will change, grow old, and die.”
So to gain her was to lose her,
So to quicken was to kill:
Heart-enshrin'd, Love sleeps; but, use her,
She will wake to perish still—
Yet would I—who would not?—choose
So to gain and so to lose.
So to quicken was to kill:
Heart-enshrin'd, Love sleeps; but, use her,
She will wake to perish still—
Yet would I—who would not?—choose
So to gain and so to lose.
| Poems by James Rhoades | |