Page:Von Heidenstam - Sweden's laureate, selected poems of Verner von Heidenstam (1919).djvu/83

The man's true reputation is his work.
What's Homer? At the very best a myth!
We seek to clasp a more enduring fame.
We see the pulses leap on Homer's brow,
For 'Iliad' has become his mighty name."

He rose, as if to go, but suddenly
She caught him by the cloak and held him fast
And murmured, while a hundred smiles dissolved
In the one look that furtively she cast:
"Still on a column there your name is carved.
If this proud vaunt be earnest, as you say,
Take from among the tools there at your feet
The biggest sledge and hew the name away!"

He turned, he shot at her a keen, quick glance,
But when she sat there calmly as before,
Twisting the flax into an even thread
And gazing at the masts along the shore,
He bent him down impulsively and took
The biggest sledge; his knuckles were distended
And then grew white as wax, so hard he gripped
Upon the haft. The lifted sledge descended.
It scattered sparks from out the column's side,
And at his feet the steps were sprinkled o'er
With rain of pointed shards. From that time forth
The temple bore the artist's name no more.

Then with a cry of joy his young wife sprang
Quickly from flax and distaff to the place,