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DR. RIMMER'S HAMILTON ON COMMONWEALTH AVENUE AND ARLINGTON STREET, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Granite unsharded by the fires of revolt
Last Line: Hamilton, voice of sovereignty.
Subject(s): Politics & Government; Sculpture & Sculptors


GRANITE unsharded by the fires of revolt, granite refined to the subtlety of a
porcelain goddess of mercy —
common-sense Hamilton!
Under the elm's sex-partite vaulting,
opposing the agitation of Washington on horseback
stands Hamilton, —

He has the stodgy dignity of a tobacco Indian
with his pompous calf stuck out after the Bourbon manner;
but his shoulders, pressing forward with the elemental impulse
of a figurehead upon a Yankee clipper
(the Invincible, you know, that rounds Cape Horn in no time)
show us Hamilton, the genius of the Yankee
Ship of State.
The sculptor,
as he chipped in a crisp mastery the medallion on the pedestal,
thought, no doubt, of Thorvaldsen;
but his nostrils smarted with the native fragrance of ships' carving
with the nostalgic smells of China hanging over the warm wharves of Salem
as he pounded the esprit with a mallet and a chisel
into the laboured, bare achievement of the staunch little spine
of Federalist Hamilton, the arrogant bastard under a prophetic mantle —
Hamilton,
the untroubled wisdom that speaks behind the mask of Washington,
Hamilton, voice of Sovereignty.





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