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.