So you saw yourself as you wished you were, As you might have been, as you cannot be; 90 Earth here, rebuked by Olympus there: And grew content in your poor degree With your little power, by those statues' godhead, And your little scope, by their eyes' full sway, And your little grace, by their grace embodied, 95 And your little date, by their forms that stay. You would fain be kinglier, say, than I am? Even so, you will not sit like Theseus. You would prove a model? The Son of Priam Has yet the advantage in arms' and knees' use. 100 You're wroth--can you slay your snake like Apollo? You're grieved--still Niobe's the grander! You live--there's the Racers' frieze to follow: You die--there's the dying Alexander. So, testing your weakness by their strength, 105 Your meager charms by their rounded beauty, Measured by Art in your breadth and length, You learned--to submit is a mortal's duty. --When I say "you" 'tis the common soul, The collective, I mean--the race of Man 110 That receives life in parts to live in a whole, And grow here according to God's clear plan. Growth came when, looking your last on them all, You turned your eyes inwardly one fine day And cried with a start--What if we so small 115 Be greater and grander the while than they? Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature? In both, of such lower types are we Precisely because of our wider nature; For time, theirs--ours, for eternity. 120 Today's brief passion limits their range; It seethes with the morrow for us and more. They are perfect--how else? they shall never change; We are faulty--why not? we have time in store. The Artificer's hand is not arrested 125 With us; we are rough-hewn, nowise polished; They stand for our copy, and, once invested With all they can teach, we shall see them abolished. 'Tis a life-long toil till our lump be leaven-- The better! What's come to perfection perishes. 130 Things learned on earth we shall practice in heaven: Works done least rapidly, Art most cherishes. Thyself shalt afford the example, Giotto! Thy one work, not to decrease or diminish, Done at a stroke, was just (was it not?) "O!" 135 Thy great Campanile is still to finish. Is it true that we are now, and shall be hereafter, But what and where depend on life's minute? Hails heavenly cheer or infernal laughter Our first step out of the gulf or in it? 140 Shall Man, such step within his endeavor, Man's face, have no more play and action Than joy which is crystallized forever, Or grief, an eternal petrifaction?