The Carver in Stone

He was a man with wide and patient eyes,Grey, like the drift of twitch-fires blown in JuneThat, without fearing, searched if any wrongMight threaten from your heart. Grey eyes he hadUnder a brow was drawn because he knewSo many seasons to so many passOf upright service, loyal, unabasedBefore the world seducing, and so, barrenOf good words praising and thought that mated his.He carved in stone. Out of his quiet lifeHe watched as any faithful seaman chargedWith tidings of the myriad faring sea,And thoughts and premonitions through his mindSailing as ships from strange and storied landsHis hungry spirit held, till all they wereFound living witness in the chiselled stone.Slowly out of the dark confusion, spreadBy life’s innumerable venturingsOver his brain, he would triumph into the lightOf one clear mood, unblemished of the blindLegions of errant thought that cried aboutHis rapt seclusion: as a pearl unsoiled,Nay, rather washed to lonelier chastity,In gritty mud. And then would come a bird,A flower, or the wind moving upon a flower,A beast at pasture, or a clustered fruit,A peasant face as were the saints of old,The leer of custom, or the bow of the moonSwung in miraculous poise--some stray from the worldOf things created by the eternal mindIn joy articulate. And his perfect moodWould dwell about the token of God’s mood,Until in bird or flower or moving windOr flock or shepherd or the troops of heavenIt sprang in one fierce moment of desireTo visible form.Then would his chisel work among the stone,Persuading it of petal or of limbOr starry curve, till risen anew there sangShape out of chaos, and again the visionOf one mind single from the world was pressedUpon the daily custom of the skyOr field or the body of man.

His peopleHad many gods for worship. The tiger-god,The owl, the dewlapped bull, the running pard,The camel and the lizard of the slime,The ram with quivering fleece and fluted horn,The crested eagle and the doming batWere sacred. And the king and his high priestsDecreed a temple, wide on columns huge,Should top the cornlands to the sky’s far line.They bade the carvers carve along the wallsImages of their gods, each one to carveAs he desired, his choice to name his god....And many came; and he among them, gladOf three leagues’ travel through the singing airOf dawn among the boughs yet bare of green,The eager flight of the spring leading his bloodInto swift lofty channels of the air,Proud as an eagle riding to the sun....An eagle, clean of pinion--there’s his choice.

Daylong they worked under the growing roof,One at his leopard, one the staring ram,And he winning his eagle from the stone,Until each man had carved one image out,Arow beyond the portal of the house.They stood arow, the company of gods,Camel and bat, lizard and bull and ram,The pard and owl, dead figures on the wall,Figures of habit driven on the stoneBy chisels governed by no heat of the brainBut drudges of hands that moved by easy rule.Proudly recorded mood was none, no thoughtPlucked from the dark battalions of the mindAnd throned in everlasting sight. But oneGod of them all was witness of beliefAnd large adventure dared. His eagle spreadWide pinions on a cloudless ground of heaven,Glad with the heart’s high courage of that dawnMoving upon the ploughlands newly sown,Dead stone the rest. He looked, and knew it so.

Then came the king with priests and counsellorsAnd many chosen of the people, wiseWith words weary of custom, and eyes askewThat watched their neighbour face for any newsOf the best way of judgment, till, each sureNone would determine with authority,All spoke in prudent praise. One liked the owlBecause an owl blinked on the beam of his barn.One, hoarse with crying gospels in the street,Praised most the ram, because the common folkWore breeches made of ram’s wool. One declaredThe tiger pleased him best,--the man who carvedThe tiger-god was halt out of the womb--A man to praise, being so pitiful.And one, whose eyes dwelt in a distant void,With spell and omen pat upon his lips,And a purse for any crystal prophet ripe,A zealot of the mist, gazed at the bull--A lean ill-shapen bull of meagre linesThat scarce the steel had graved upon the stone--Saying that here was very mysteryAnd truth, did men but know. And one there wasWho praised his eagle, but rememberingThe lither pinion of the swift, the curveThat liked him better of the mirrored swan.And they who carved the tiger-god and ram,The camel and the pard, the owl and bull,And lizard, listened greedily, and madeHumble denial of their worthiness,And when the king his royal judgment gaveThat all had fashioned well, and bade that eachRe-shape his chosen god along the wallsTill all the temple boasted of their skill,They bowed themselves in token that as thisNever had carvers been so fortunate.

Only the man with wide and patient eyesMade no denial, neither bowed his head.Already while they spoke his thought had goneFar from his eagle, leaving it for a signLoyally wrought of one deep breath of life,And played about the image of a toadThat crawled among his ivy leaves. A queerPuff-bellied toad, with eyes that always staredSidelong at heaven and saw no heaven there,Weak-hammed, and with a throttle somehow twistedBeyond full wholesome draughts of air, and skinOf wrinkled lips, the only zest or willThe little flashing tongue searching the leaves.And king and priest, chosen and counsellor,Babbling out of their thin and jealous brains,Seemed strangely one; a queer enormous toadPanting under giant leaves of dark,Sunk in the loins, peering into the day.Their judgment wry he counted not for wrongMore than the fabled poison of the toadStriking at simple wits; how should their thoughtOr word in praise or blame come near the peaceThat shone in seasonable hours aboveThe patience of his spirit’s husbandry?They foolish and not seeing, how should heSpend anger there or fear--great ceremoniesEqual for none save great antagonists?The grave indifference of his heart before themWas moved by laughter innocent of hate,Chastising clean of spite, that moulded themInto the antic likeness of his toadBidding for laughter underneath the leaves.

He bowed not, nor disputed, but he sawThose ill-created joyless gods, and loathed,And saw them creeping, creeping round the walls,Death breeding death, wile witnessing to wile,And sickened at the dull iniquityShould be rewarded, and for ever breatheContagion on the folk gathered in prayer.His truth should not be doomed to march amongThis falsehood to the ages. He was called,And he must labour there; if so the kingWould grant it, where the pillars bore the roofA galleried way of meditation nursedSecluded time, with wall of ready stoneIn panels for the carver set betweenThe windows--there his chisel should be set,--It was his plea. And the king spoke of him,Scorning, as one lack-fettle, among all theseEager to take the riches of renown;One fearful of the light or knowing nothingOf light’s dimension, a witling who would throwHonour aside and praise spoken aloudAll men of heart should covet. Let him goGrubbing out of the sight of these who knewThe worth of substance; there was his proper trade.

A squat and curious toad indeed.... The eyes,Patient and grey, were dumb as were the lips,That, fixed and governed, hoarded from them allThe larger laughter lifting in his heart.Straightway about his gallery he moved,Measured the windows and the virgin stone,Till all was weighed and patterned in his brain.Then first where most the shadow struck the wall,Under the sills, and centre of the base,From floor to sill out of the stone was wooedMemorial folly, as from the chisel leaptHis chastening laughter searching priest and king--A huge and wrinkled toad, with legs asplay,And belly loaded, leering with great eyesBusily fixed upon the void.All daysHis chisel was the first to ring acrossThe temple’s quiet; and at fall of duskPassing among the carvers homeward, theyWould speak of him as mad, or weak againstThe challenge of the world, and let him goLonely, as was his will, under the nightOf stars or cloud or summer’s folded sun,Through crop and wood and pastureland to sleep.None took the narrow stair as wonderingHow did his chisel prosper in the stone,Unvisited his labour and forgot.And times when he would lean out of his heightAnd watch the gods growing along the walls,The row of carvers in their linen coatsTook in his vision a virtue that aloneCarving they had not nor the thing they carved.Knowing the health that flowed about his closeImagining, the daily quiet wonFrom process of his clean and supple craft,Those carvers there, far on the floor below,Would haply be transfigured in his thoughtInto a gallant company of menGlad of the strict and loyal reckoningThat proved in the just presence of the brainEach chisel-stroke. How surely would he prosperIn pleasant talk at easy hours with menSo fashioned if it might be--and his eyesWould pass again to those dead gods that grewIn spreading evil round the temple walls;And, one dead pressure made, the carvers movedAlong the wall to mould and mould againThe self-same god, their chisels on the stoneTapping in dull precision as before,And he would turn, back to his lonely truth.

He carved apace. And first his people’s gods,About the toad, out of their sterile time,Under his hand thrilled and were recreate.The bull, the pard, the camel and the ram,Tiger and owl and bat--all were the signsVisibly made body on the stoneOf sightless thought adventuring the hostThat is mere spirit; these the bloom achievedBy secret labour in the flowing woodOf rain and air and wind and continent sun....His tiger, lithe, immobile in the stone,A swift destruction for a moment leashed,Sprang crying from the jealous stealth of menOpposed in cunning watch, with engines hidOf torment and calamitous desire.His leopard, swift on lean and paltry limbs,Was fear in flight before accusing faith.His bull, with eyes that often in the duskWould lift from the sweet meadow grass to watchHim homeward passing, bore on massy beamThe burden of the patient of the earth.His camel bore the burden of the damned,Being gaunt, with eyes aslant along the nose.He had a friend, who hammered bronze and ironAnd cupped the moonstone on a silver ring,One constant like himself, would come at nightOr bid him as a guest, when they would makeTheir poets touch a starrier height, or searchTogether with unparsimonious mindThe crowded harbours of mortality.And there were jests, wholesome as harvest aleOf homely habit, bred of hearts that daredJudgment of laughter under the eternal eye:This frolic wisdom was his carven owl.His ram was lordship on the lonely hills,Alert and fleet, content only to knowThe wind mightily pouring on his fleece,With yesterday and all unrisen sunsPoorer than disinherited ghosts. His batWas ancient envy made a mockery,Cowering below the newer eagle carvedAbove the arches with wide pinion spread,His faith’s dominion of that happy dawn.

And so he wrought the gods upon the wall,Living and crying out of his desire,Out of his patient incorruptible thought,Wrought them in joy was wages to his faith.And other than the gods he made. The stalksOf bluebells heavy with the news of spring,The vine loaded with plenty of the year,And swallows, merely tenderness of thoughtBidding the stone to small and fragile flight;Leaves, the thin relics of autumnal boughs,Or massed in June....All from their native pressure bloomed and sprangUnder his shaping hand into a proudAnd governed image of the central man,--Their moulding, charts of all his travelling.And all were deftly ordered, duly setBetween the windows, underneath the sills,And roofward, as a motion rightly planned,Till on the wall, out of the sullen stone,A glory blazed, his vision manifest,His wonder captive. And he was content.

And when the builders and the carvers knewTheir labour done, and high the temple stoodOver the cornlands, king and counsellorAnd priest and chosen of the people cameAmong a ceremonial multitudeTo dedication. And, below the thronesWhere king and archpriest ruled above the throng,Highest among the ranked artificersThe carvers stood. And when, the temple vowedTo holy use, tribute and choral praiseGiven as was ordained, the king looked downUpon the gathered folk, and bade them seeThe comely gods fashioned about the walls,And keep in honour men whose precious skillCould so adorn the sessions of their worship,Gravely the carvers bowed them to the ground.Only the man with wide and patient eyesStood not among them; nor did any comeTo count his labour, where he watched aloneAbove the coloured throng. He heard, and lookedAgain upon his work, and knew it good,Smiled on his toad, passed down the stair unseenAnd sang across the teeming meadows home.