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One night I passed the gardens of the King;
The air was sweet with many roses blown,
And through the dusk I saw the glimmering
Of fair white statues carven out of stone.

 

The King is great, the King must have the best;
I saw his servants searching land and sea,
With skill to find by many a subtle test,
The masking beauty wheresoe'er it be.

 

I came where one in stainless marble wrought
A mighty work of purpose yet unknown,
And while I pondered on the sculptor's thought
I heard the statue sighing in the stone.

 

Sighing for doubt and self-despair, it spake;
"One dwelt by me who all enchantment knows;
Both sky and earth grew tender for her sake;
It must be beautiful to be a rose.

 

"They took her to the gardens of the King
And there will play for her the minstrel-airs;
And she, to music slowly opening,
Will yield her graces one by one to prayers.

 

"Hard is the world's way with us harder things;
Chisel and hammer fearfully entreat;
But such as she were born to be the King's,
And gentleness for gentleness is meet.

 

"So easy, easy is it to unfold,
And be, by growing, what they long to be;
But strange and secret is the fate I hold,
And painful searchers carve it out for me."

 

The roses in the gardens of the King
Were fluttering down beneath the statue's eyes
When on their lofty faces, triumphing
In changeless beauty, did the dawn arise.

 

I looked and passing, to myself I said,
"With pains, with patience, comes the better part;
Life for a day an hour hath perfected,
But slowly grows the immortal work of art.

 

"O that the prisoned ones could know how fair
Are these transfigured kindred of their own!"
They did not know, nor dream--for everywhere
I heard the statue sighing in the stone.