17 To Monsieur Froment Meurice

We are brothers: the flower
Is fashioned in doubled art.
The poet is a sculptor,
The sculptor is a poet.

Through us, poet or sculptor,
Spirit becomes scrutable.
We make the good better,
You make beauty more beautiful.

On her neck or on the arm,
You make from your dreams,
Sculptor of the jeweled charm
Palaces of precious gems!

Don’t say: My art’s a blank …
Step beyond the threshold,
Magic craftsman, make:
Blending thought with gold!

True thinkers take no stock
Who ends it or who starts:
They sculpt from the same rock.
This rock is immense art.

Michelangelo, great old man,
In large blocks he hurls around,
Makes it spring forth at random;
Benvenuto breaks it down.

And, before infinite art’s endlessness,
Whose law is changeless, locked,
Cellini’s crumb-small part
Is worth Michelangelo’s block.

Everything is grand. Red or dun,
Each bright fire’s a soul-claim.
The star is worth the sun;
The spark is worth the flame.

Paris, October 22, 1841.