Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/177

While thine eyes, still broad with the plastic passion,
Thawed, too, in drops of wounded manhood,. .since,
Mocking alike thine art and indignation,
Laughed at the palace-window the new prince,. .
"Aha! this genius needs for exaltation,
When all's said, and howe'er the proud may wince,
A little marble from our princely mines!"
I do believe that hour thou laughedst too,
For the whole world and for thy Florentines,
After those few tears—which were only few!
That as, beneath the sun, the grand white lines
Of thy snow-statue trembled and withdrew,—
The head, erect as Jove's, being palsied first,
The eyelids flattened, the full brow turned blank,-
When the right hand, upraised as if it cursed,
Dropped, a mere snowball, and the people sank
Their voices, though a louder laughter burst
From the window,—Michel, then, thy soul could thank
God and the prince, for promise and presage,
And laugh the laugh back, I think, verily,
Thine eyes being purged by tears of righteous rage,
To read a wrong into a prophecy,
And measure a true great man's heritage
Against a mere Grand-duke's posterity.
I think thy soul said then, "I do not need
A princedom and its quarries, after all;
For if I write, paint, carve a word, indeed,
On book or board or dust, on floor or wall,
The same is kept of God who taketh heed
That not a letter of the meaning fall,