Extract from "The Greek Slave"

It is not that the sculptor's patient toil
-Gives sweet expression to the poet's dream —
It is not that the cold and rigid stone
Js taught to mock the human face divine —
That silently we stand before her form
And feel as in a holy presence there.
Rut in those fair, calm lineaments of hers,
All pure and passionless, we catch the glow
The bright intelligence of soul infused,
And tender memories of gentle things,
And sorrowing innocence and hopeful trust
In some secluded vale of Arcady,
In playful gambols o'er its sunny slopes,
Had nature led her childish feet to stray;
Or she had watched the blue Egean wave
Dash on the sands of "sea-born Salamis;"
Or, in her infant sports, had sank to sleep,
Beneath the wasting shadow of that porch,
Whose sculptured gods, upon its crumbling front,
Reveal the glories of a bygone age.
There, watered by affection's richest dews
This lovely floweret, day by day grew up
In beauty and in fragrance
Now, a slave,
Fettered and friendless in the market-place
Of that imperial city of the east,
Whose thousand minarets at eve resound
With the muezzin's sunset call to prayer,
She stands exposed to the unhallowed gaze
And the rude jests of every passer-by.
There in her loveliness, disrobed, for sale,
Girt with no vesture save her purity,
A ray of placid resignation beams
In every line of her sweet countenance,
And on the lip a half-disdainful curl
Proclaims the helpless victim in her chains
Victorious in a maiden's modesty!
There does the poor dejected slave display
A mien the fabled goddess could not wear,
A look and gesture that might well beseem
Some seraph from that bright meridian shore,
Where walk the angels of the Christian's creed
Sweet visions cheer'd the sculptor's lonely hours,
And glorious images of heavenly mould
Came trooping at his call, as blow by blow,
The marble yielded to his constant toil,
And when he gave his last informing touch
And raised the chisel from that radiant brow,
And gazed upon the work of his own hands,
So cunningly struck out from shapeless stone,
His eye dilated with a conscious joy,
That patient effort with enduring life
Had clothed his beauteous and majestic child.
Such are thy triumphs, genius! such rewards
As far outweigh all perishable gifts,
Ingots of silver and barbaric gold
And all the trophies of tiaraed pride.