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(From The Marble Prophecy)
LAOCOÖN! thou great embodiment | |
| Of human life and human history! | |
| Thou record of the past, thou prophecy | |
| Of the sad future, thou majestic voice, | |
| Pealing along the ages from old time! | 5 |
| Thou wail of agonized humanity! | |
| There lives no thought in marble like to thee! | |
| Thou hast no kindred in the Vatican, | |
| But standest separate among the dreams | |
| Of old mythologies,—alone,—alone! * * * * * | 10 |
| A voice from out the world’s experience, | |
| Speaking of all the generations past | |
| To all the generations yet to come, | |
| Of the long struggle, the sublime despair, | |
| The wild and weary agony of man! * * * * * | 15 |
| In the quick sunlight on the Esquiline, | |
| Where thou didst sleep, De Fredis kept his vines, | |
| And long above thee grew the grapes whose blood | |
| Ran wild in Christian arteries, and fed | |
| The fire of Christian revels. Ah! what fruit | 20 |
| Sucked up the marrow of thy marble there! | |
| What fierce, mad dreams were those that scared the souls | |
| Of men who drank, nor guessed what ichor stung | |
| Their crimson lips, and tingled in their veins! | |
| Strange growths were those that sprang above thy sleep: | 25 |
| Vines that were serpents; huge and ugly trunks | |
| That took the forms of human agony,— | |
| Contorted, gnarled, and grim,—and leaves that bore | |
| The semblance of a thousand tortured hands, | |
| And snaky tendrils that entwined themselves | 30 |
| Around all forms of life within their reach, | |
And crushed or blighted them!
At last the spade | |
| Slid down to find the secret of the vines, | |
| And touched thee with a thrill that startled Rome, | |
| And swiftly called a shouting multitude | 35 |
To witness thy unveiling.
Ah! what joy | |
| Greeted the rising from thy long repose! | |
| And one, the mighty master of his time, | |
| The king of Christian art, with strong, sad face | |
| Looked on, and wondered with the giddy crowd,— | 40 |
| Looked on and learned (too late, alas! for him), | |
| That his humanity and God’s own truth | |
| Were more than Christian Rome, and spoke in words | |
| Of larger import. Humbled Angelo | |
| Bowed to the masters of the early days, | 45 |
| Grasped their strong hands across the centuries, | |
| And went his way despairing! | |
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