The Statues in the Block
“LOVE is the secret of the world,' he said;
'The cup we drain and still desire to drink.
The loadstone hungers for the steel; the steel,
Inert amid a million stones, responds to this.
So yearn and answer hearts that truly love:
Once touch their life-spring, it vibrates to death;
And twain athrill as one are nature-wed.'
But silent stood the three who heard, nor smiled
Nor looked agreement. Strangers these who stood
Within a Roman studio—still young,
But sobered each with that which follows joy
At life's fresh forenoon, and the eye of each
Held deep within a restless eager light,
As gleams a diamond in a darkened room
With radiance hoarded from the vanished sun.
'The meteor-stone is dense and dark in space,
But bursts in flame when through the air it rushes,
And our dull life is like an aerolite
That leaps to fire within the sphere of love.'
Unchecked his mood ran on: 'Sweet amorous hours
That lie in years as isles in tropic seas,
You spring to view as Art is born of Love,
And shape rich beauties in this marble block!'
Before them rose within the shaded light
A tall and shapely mass of Alp-white crystal
Fresh from the heart of a Carrara quarry.
'Opaque to you this marble; but to me,
Whose eyes the chrism of passion has anointed,
The stone is pregnant with a life of love.
Within this monolith there lives a form
Which I can see and would reveal to you,
Could hand and chisel swiftly follow sight.
From brow to foot her lissome form stands forth—
The ripe lips smiling reached; with nestling press,
As round the sailor frozen in the berg
The clear ice closes on the still dead face,
The marble, grown translucent, touches soft
Each comely feature—rippled hair, and chin,
And lily sweep of bust and hip and limb—
Ah, sweet mouth pouting for the lips that cling,
And white arms raised all quivering to the clasp—
Ah, rich throat made for .burning lover's kiss,
And reckless bodice open to the swell,
And deep eyes soft with love's suffusion—Love!
O Love! still living, memory and hope,
Beyond all sweets thy bosom, breath, and lips—
My jewel and the jewel of the world!'
[...] Read more
poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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