Page:All quiet along the Potomac and other poems.djvu/226

 22o &quot;WITH CARE

��&quot;WITH CARE.&quot;

THE sculptor s thought to marble grown, Perfect as shapely thought might be, Laid swathed in wrappings folded close, &quot;With care,&quot; to cross the land and sea.

Warm with the fair Italian sun,

They laid the dim white dream away ;

Around it pressed the golden straw That nodded, growing, yesterday.

The while, some seeds of Southern blooms, By no one picked with tender hands

(At least no man ; the Lord of all Its passport gave to foreign lands),

Were nestled there in Tuscan straw, Each robing folded from the air ;

So germs as well as marble went

Beneath the painted mark, &quot;With care.&quot;

Safe to the far-off Northern port, Safe to the waiting Northern town,

True hands the statue safely bore, And all unblemished laid it down.

Safely they reared the wondrous shaft Amid the palace columns gleam,

And men became idolaters

Before Thorwaldsen s &quot;frozen dream.&quot;

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