The Angel

From The Topeka State Journal, November 20, 1912. 
By Wilbur D. Nesbit.
 

 Carve me an angel, sculptor, and let your stone be white
 So white that it will shimmer, reflecting back the light—
 Give it semblance, sculptor—a form and shape like this:
 A lassie wee and drowsy, who gives a good-night kiss.
 Too weary from all her playing to open her lips to speak—
 And carve the chubby fingers that touch her mother’s cheek.
 Ah, she needs no halo—simply a wayward curl.
 That is an angel, sculptor—somebody’s little girl.
 
 What for an angel, sculptor? Get you marble fine
 Carve it with patient purpose, coax it to curve and line
 Drape it with flowing garments, give it the simple charms—
 Carve us a mother holding her baby in her arms.
 Wonderful, tender, hopeful, sweet she must be and wise
 And with the light of heaven glimmering in her eyes.
 That is an angel, sculptor—see that you carve it sure
 Showing the love that surges out from a soul all pure.
 
 Carve me an angel, sculptor. Carve us a woman, old
 And grave in all the wrinkles her withered cheek must hold—
 Wrinkles that tell of sorrow, lines that the laughs have left
 Give her the knotted fingers no longer quick and deft
 Bend her with years of toiling, bow her with weight of years
 Show us the golden beauty wrought of her smiles and tears.
 Tell in the stone the story, how she is wan and worn
 Through all her self-denial for the ones that she has borne.
 
 That is an angel, sculptor. Grave it, and carve it so
 And all the world will see it—see it, and bow down low.