Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
On an Intaglio Head of Minerva
By Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907)B
The flowing tresses of the woman!
Minerva, Pallas, what you will—
A winsome creature, Greek or Roman.
In cousin’s helmet masquerading;
If not—then Wisdom was a dame
For sonnets and for serenading!
Not made for love’s despairs and blisses:
Did Pallas wear her hair like that?
Was Wisdom’s mouth so shaped for kisses?
And not the Owl, big-eyed and solemn:
How very fresh she looks, and yet
She’s older far than Trajan’s Column!
And set this vine-work round it running,
Perhaps ere mighty Phidias wrought
Had lost its subtle skill and cunning.
Who knew to carve in such a fashion?
Perchance he graved the dainty head
For some brown girl that scorned his passion.
Where neither fount nor tree to-day is,
He flung the jewel at the feet
Of Phryne, or perhaps ’twas Laïs.
His happy or unhappy story:
Nameless, and dead these centuries,
His work outlives him—there’s his glory!
Beneath a lava-buried city;
The countless summers came and went
With neither haste, nor hate, nor pity.
The jewel fresh as any blossom,
Till some Visconti dug it up—
To rise and fall on Mabel’s bosom!
Your gracious handiwork has guarded:
See how your loving, patient art
Has come, at last, to be rewarded.
And pangs of hopeless passion also,
To have his carven agate-stone
On such a bosom rise and fall so!