| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | In a Corridor of Statues | | By Julia Cooley |
| | (Chicago Art Institute)
THEY crowd about me, close and white and still— | |
| These statutes. On their lips is vocal silence. | |
| They frighten me with the depth of their unspoken wisdom, | |
| And the vast presences of spectral thoughts floating | |
| In the white, un-pupiled spaces of their eyes. | 5 |
| They look down upon me with the penetration of Sphinxes. | |
| In the deep, unsentient regions of their soulless clay | |
| They hold all the secrets which my living soul knows not. | |
| Yet for a moment, a sunlit while, I rise | |
| Above their white everlastingness! | 10 |
| I am rosy with life, dancing in the current of motion. | |
| Their stillness intensifies my strength, my power! | |
| For a little the great world is mine completely! | |
| The Faun, chained whitely in his marble statue, | |
| Yearns to leap out into the world with me. | 15 |
| He would rush, singing for joy, with me down the street. | |
| King Arthur strains to march out into the city | |
| With his sword and his buckler, and his eyes filled with the Grail. | |
| But they are fast in their cases of clay, and I am free! | |
| I will walk forth with the borrowed strength of their mastery. | 20 |
| I will walk on and on, until my gladness, my motion, my life | |
| Are sealed like theirs in the silent wisdom of clay. | |
| I will walk forth with the life-giving power of their beauty. | | | | |
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