Life

Life, like a marble block, is given to all,

A blank, inchoate mass of years and days,

Whence one with ardent chisel swift essays

Some shape of strength or symmetry to call;

One shatters it in bits to mend a wall;

One in a craftier hand the chisel lays,

And one, to wake the mirth in Lesbia’s gaze,

Carves it apace in toys fantastical.

But least is he who, with enchanted eyes

Filled with high visions of fair shapes to be,

Muses which god he shall immortalize

In the proud Parian’s perpetuity,

Till twilight warns him from the punctual skies

That the night cometh wherein none shall see.