Poem by Archibald MacLeish

Hands

Emperors, prophets, priests, named one by one,
Great names of prophets who foretold the sun,
Names of great emperors whose armies won—
These are but names and, being named, are done.

But you are never dust, that had no name,
Nor any honor in your ages' fame;
You that were ageless and all times the same.

You raised the stones that lie at Eridu,
Petra you built, where once the date-palm grew;
And Egypt's pyramids, that cannot say

What king they house, nor what his death and day,
Nor how he lived, are eloquent of you,
Naked and nameless modellers of clay.

You have no monument, yet every king
Who built a tomb for his remembering
Built with the marble you could hew and bring;

And every conqueror who set a tower
To mark forever his triumphal power
Marked but your skill that labored there an hour;

And every prophet who cried out the Word
Cried only meanings that your hearts had heard,
Hearing the twilight silence and the bird.

And when these cities made of steel and stone
Are choked with earth and vaguely overblown,
Nothing will rest of all that now they own,
No fame, no wonder, but your hands alone.

1. Hunters
2. Difference
3. Kenneth
4. Chambers of Imagery
5. Invocation

Arthur Symons Hands ("The little hands too soft and white")

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