He must do without you now,
Stir you no more anyhow
To yearning concords taught you in your glory;
While, your strings a tangled wreck,
Once smart drawn,
Ten worm-wounds in your neck,
Purflings wan
With dust-hoar, here alone I sadly con
Your present dumbness, shape your olden story.
1916.
THE STATUE OF LIBERTY
This statue of Liberty, busy man,
Here erect in the city square,
I have watched while your scrubbings, this early morning,
Strangely wistful,
And half tristful,
Have turned her from foul to fair;
With your bucket of water, and mop, and brush,
Bringing her out of the grime
That has smeared her during the smokes of winter
With such glumness
In her dumbness,
And aged her before her time.
You have washed her down with motherly care -
Head, shoulders, arm, and foot,
To the very hem of the robes that drape her -
All expertly
And alertly,
Till a long stream, black with soot,
Flows over the pavement to the road,
And her shape looms pure as snow:
I read you are hired by the City guardians -
May be yearly,
Or once merely -
To treat the statues so?
"Oh, I'm not hired by the Councilmen
To cleanse the statues here.
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