Her loss, and view with other eyes his fate.
Even as the cunning workman brings to pass
The sculptor s thought from out the unwieldy mass
Of shapeless marble, so Time lops away
The stony crust of falsehood that concealed
His just proportions, and, at last revealed,
The statue issues to the light of day,
Most beautiful, most human. Let them fling
The first stone who are tempted even as he,
And have not swerved. When did that rare soul sing
The victim s shame, the tyrant s eulogy,
The great belittle, or exalt the small,
Or grudge his gift, his blood, to disenthrall
The slaves of tyranny or ignorance?
Stung by fierce tongues himself, whose rightful fame
Hath he reviled ? Upon what noble name
Did the winged arrows of that barbed wit glance?
The years thick, clinging curtains backward pull,
And show him as he is, crowned with bright beams,
" Beauteous, and yet not all as beautiful
As he hath been or might be ; Sorrow seems
Half of his immortality."[1] He needs
No monument whose name and song and deeds
- ↑ Cain, Act I. Scene 1.
