Ode to the Statue of Moses

The Masterpiece of Michael Angelo

STATUE! whose giant limbs

Old Buanorotti planned,

And Genius carved with meditative hand,

Thy dazzling radiance dims

The best and brightest boast of sculpture’s favorite land.

What dignity adorns

That beard’s prodigious sweep!

That forehead, awful with mysterious horns

And cogitation deep,

Of some uncommon mind the rapt beholder warns.

In that proud semblance, well

My soul can recognize

The prophet fresh from converse with the skies;

Nor is it hard to tell

The liberator’s name, the guide of Israel.

Well might the deep respond

Obedient to that voice,

When on the Red Sea shore he waved his wand

And bade the tribes rejoice,

Saved from the yawning gulf and the Egyptian’s bond!

Fools! in the wilderness

Ye raised a calf of gold,

Had ye then worshipped what I now behold

Your crime had been far less—

For ye had bent the knee to one of godlike mould!