XXXII.
Michael Angelo’s Statues on the Tombs of the Medici.
Ye crown’d unmoving truths that had your birth1
Before the swarms of things awoke on earth.2
While thus world-huge, star-high your peace endures,3
This busy life of ours cannot be yours.4
It quakes and cracks where’er our steps we thrust :5
Beneath your weight of calm ’twould fall to dust,6
Sky, seas, and caves, the night beyond the stars,7
Whose lone abyss no sound of morning jars.8
Your homes are these, O ye in whom we shrink,9
To see how calmly strength may rest and think.10