Chapter I: Pheidias

Pheidias, the sculptor, dying bade them set
His last-cut marble near lest he forget,
Travelling, where beauty ends, what beauty is
In the world and the light no longer his.
And while they brought it, women, as they use,
Sang in the house the litany of Zeus
That is the god of gods, yet could not save
His own beloved lady from the grave.
“The dearest head” they sung, “yea even her’s,
Whose hair was like a harp, when the wind stirs
Upon the strings and wakes them, golden hair,
Must droop upon the ground and perish there--
Even her hair (the women sung), alas
For loveliness! wherein Olympus was
Lost for a god and found, when he, with mist
About him of its glory twist on twist,
Found on her mouth, more passionate for this,
Mortality, that trembled in the kiss
--Even that hair, for all a high god’s art,
Long since is dust, and dust that was her heart.”
This song of ending in the darkness came
To Pheidias in the courtyard, where the flame
Of torches threw a final light and shewed
Two pillars of the house, a turn of road
That led (he thought) beyond all sight, and he
Must walk it with a quiet company
--The cold imagined gods, no prayer might cozen
To help him on the way, immortal, frozen
Glimpses of deity his hand, creating
In marble out of his heart where they were waiting
For life, had carved, and given them instead
Of life the eternal gesture of the dead.
He with those gods must walk, since he had grown
Into their silence, and had made his own
Their longings thus imprisoned, and their heart
On one beat fixed for ever. He must start
To follow, but before his striving spirit
Steps out upon the road or falters near it,
One god, that guards the passage, waiting stands--
His latest marble, made like those, with hands,
Fashioned, like those, of a man’s dreams, but overstepping
His maker’s mind, and into a glory sweeping
No man might share. For the great forehead lifted
Out of the shade of life, and light had shifted
Her quality, whose radiant indecision
Found, though the eyes were closed, consummate vision.
This was the god that dying Pheidias
Had beaten out of marble. This he was,
And would not share with other gods their death
In beauty, but was living with the breath
Of his creator, who with death at strife
Laid down his own to give his creature life.
This god they brought to Pheidias, for whom
The whole great world had been a little room,
Which he had used, as others use, but he
Looked through the window on eternity.
And seeing his god, upon his mind the cloud
Faded an instant, and he cried aloud,
As though all Hellas heard him, “O be proud
Of beauty, Hellas, nor be curious
Of what the secret is that haunted us
Your poets, who had strained to it, and after
Lay down to sleep, sealing their lips with laughter.
For laughter is the judgment of the wise,
Who measure equally with level eyes
What the world is, what gods, and what are men,
And twixt too great a joy, too sharp a pain,
Strikes on a balance, so that tears are shot
With laughter, laughter with tears, and these are not
Themselves, but greater than themselves, and each
From other learns and doth to other teach.
We are content with beauty thus, who find
That when all’s done--sculpture or song--behind
What we have carved or sung, a greater thing
Startles the heart with movement of a wing
We neither see nor dare see. For our thought
Is larger than we know, and what we sought
Passes and has forgotten; what we do,
The truth we did not guess at pierces through,
If what was done was well done. This last bust
Of mine not as I willed but as I must
I carved, and now, at the end of all, I can
See that the dream he does not dream is man.
The earlier gods I carved and knew, they wait
My coming as their master at the gate
Of death, for what I knew is mine to have,
Live with my life, and wither in my grave.
Thus beauty known is fading, known love fades,
And the truth we know a shadow in the shades,
And only that which lies beyond our hands,
Beauty, no earth-bound spirit understands,
But guesses at and faints for in desire;
And love, that does not burn, because the fire
Is lit beyond the world, and truth that dies
Beyond our thoughts in unimagined lies
That are the truth beyond truth, only these
Are lasting and outwit our memories.
But the familiar gods that I have made--
With those I will not walk. O be afraid
Of beauty attainable and love attained
And limited immortality. Unchained
The greatest soul must walk and walk alone
With what it has not seen and has not known!”
Thus Pheidias spoke and presently the flame
Of torches died, his god that had no name
--His latest statue--watched his spirit pass
And the dawn came that knew not Pheidias.