Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN: BOOK 1. THE ARTIST, by BAYARD TAYLOR


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN: BOOK 1. THE ARTIST, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Complete the altar stands; my task is done
Last Line: "but by your hand am I forever crowned!"
Alternate Author Name(s): Taylor, James Bayard
Subject(s): Art & Artists; Life; Passion; Saints


I.

COMPLETE the altar stands: my task is done.
Awhile from sacred toil and silent prayer
I rest, and never shone the vale so fair
As now, beneath the mellow autumn sun,
And overbreathed by tinted autumn air!
In drowsy murmurs slide the mountain rills,
And, save of light, the whole wide heaven is bare
Above the happy slumber of the hills.

II.

Here, as a traveller whose feet have clomb
A weary mountain-slope, may choose his seat,
And resting, track the ways that he hath come, --
The broken landscapes, level far below,
The turf that kissed, the flints that tore his feet,
And each dim speck that once was bliss or woe, --
I breathe a space, between two sundered lives,
And view what now is ended, what survives.

III.

Such as I am, I am: in soul and sense
Distinct, existing in my separate right,
And though a Power, beyond my clouded sight,
Spun from a thousand gathered filaments
My cord of life, within its inmost core
That life is mine: its torture, its delight,
Repeat not those that ever were before
Or ever shall be: mine are Day and Night.

IV.

God gives to most an order which supplies
Their passive substance, and they move therein.
To some He grants the beating wings that rise
In endless aspiration, till they win
An awful vision of a deeper sin
And loftier virtue, other earth and skies:
And those their common help from each may draw,
But these must perish, save they find the law.

V.

Vain to evade and useless to bewail
My fortune! One among the scattered few
Am I: by sharper lightning, sweeter dew
Refreshed or blasted, -- on a wilder gale
Caught up and whirled aloft, till, hither borne,
My story pauses. Ere I drop the veil
Once let me take the Past in calm review,
Then eastward turn, and front the riper morn.

VI.

What sire begat me, and what mother nursed,
What hills the blue frontiers of Earth I thought,
Or how my young ambition scaled them first,
It matters not: but I was finely wrought
Beyond their elements from whom I came.
A nimbler life informed mine infant frame:
The gauzy wings some Psyche-fancy taught
To flutter, soulless custom could not tame.

VII.

Our state was humble, -- yet above the dust,
If deep below the stars, -- the state that feeds
Impatience, hinting yet denying needs,
And thus, on one side ever forward thrust
And on the other cruelly repressed,
My nature grew, -- a wild-flower in the weeds, --
And hurt by ignorant love, that fain had blessed,
I sought some other bliss wherein to rest.

VIII.

And, wandering forth, a child that could not know
The thing for which he pined, in sombre woods
And echo-haunted mountain-solitudes
I learned a rapture from the blended show
Of form and color, felt the soul that broods
In lonely scenes, the moods that come and go
O'er wayward Nature, making her the haunt
Of Art's forerunner, Love's eternal want.

IX.

Long ere the growing instinct reached my hand,
It filled my brain: a pang of joy was born,
When, soft as dew, across the dewy land
Of Summer, leaned the crystal-hearted Morn;
And when the lessening day shone yellow-cold
On fallow glebe and stubble, I would stand
And feel a dumb despair its wings unfold,
And wring my hands, and weep as one forlorn.

X.

At first in play, but soon with heat and stir
Of joy that hails discovered power, I tried
To mimic form, and taught mine eye to guide
The unskilled fingers. Praise became a spur
To overtake success, for in that vale
The simple people's wonder did not fail,
Nor vulgar prophecies, which yet confer
The first delicious thrills of faith and pride.

XI.

So, as on shining pinions lifted o'er
The perilous bridge of boyhood, I advanced.
In warmer air the misty Maenads danced,
And Sirens sang on many a rising shore,
And Glory's handmaids beckoned me to choose
The freshest of the unworn wreaths they bore;
So gracious Fortune showed, so fair the hues
Wherewith she paints her cloud-built avenues!

XII.

Ere up through all this airy ecstasy
The clamorous pulses of the senses beat,
And half the twofold man, maturing first,
Usurped its share of life, and bade me see
The ways of pleasure opening for my feet,
I stood alone: the tender breast that nursed,
The loins from whence I sprang, alike were cold,
And mine the humble roof, the scanty gold.

XIII.

The pale, cold azure of my mountain sky
Became a darkness: Arber's head unshorn
No temple crowned, -- not here could fame be born;
And, nor with gold nor knowledge weighted, I
Set forth, and o'er the green Bavarian land,
A happy wanderer, fared: the hour was nigh
When, in the home of Art, my feet should stand
Where Time and Power have kissed the Painter's hand!

XIV.

Oh, sweet it was, when, from that bleak abode
Where avalanches grind the pines to dust,
And crouching glaciers down the hollows thrust
Their glittering claws, I took the sunward road,
Making my guide the torrent, that before
My steps ran shouting, giddy with its joy,
And tossed its white hands like a gamesome boy,
And sprayed its rainbow frolics o'er and o'er!

XV.

Full-orbed, in rosy dusk, the perfect moon
That evening shone: the torrent's noise, afar,
No longer menaced, but with mellow tune
Sang to the twinkle of a silver star,
Above the opening valley. "Italy!"
The moon, the star, the torrent, said to me, --
"Sleep thou in peace, the morning will unbar
These Alpine gates, and give thy world to thee!"

XVI.

And morning did unfold the jutting capes
Or chestnut-wooded hills, that held embayed
Warm coves of fruit, the pine's AEolian shade,
Or pillared bowers, blue with suspended grapes; --
A land whose forms some livelier grace betrayed;
Where motion sang and cheerful color laughed,
And only gloomed, amid the dancing shapes
Of vine and bough, the pointed cypress-shaft!

XVII.

On, -- on, through broadening vale and brightening sun
I walked, and hoary in their old repose
The olives twinkled: many a terrace rose,
With marbles crowned and jasmine overrun,
And orchards where the ivory silk-worm spun.
On leafy palms outspread, its pulpy fruit
The fig-tree held; and last, the charm to close,
A dark-eyed shepherd piped a reedy flute.

XVIII.

My heart beat loud: I walked as in a dream
Where simplest actions, touched with marvel, seem
Enchanted yet familiar for I knew
The orchards, terraces, and breathing flowers,
The tree from Adam's garden, and the blue
Sweet sky behind the light aerial towers;
And that young faun that piped, had piped before, --
I knew my home: the exile now was o'er!

XIX.

And when the third rich day declined his lids,
I floated where the emerald waters fold
Gem-gardens, fairy island-pyramids,
Whereon the orange hangs his globes of gold, --
Which aloes crown with white, colossal plume,
Above the beds where lavish Nature bids
Her sylphs of odor endless revel hold.
Her zones of flowers in balmy congress bloom!

XX.

I hailed them all, and hailed beyond, the plain;
The palace-fronts, on distant hills uplift,
White as the morning-star; the streams that drift
In sandy channels to the Adrian main:
Till one still eve, with duplicated stain
Of crimson sky and wave, disclosed to me
The domes of Venice, anchored on the sea,
Far-off, -- an airy city of the brain!

XXI.

Forth from the shores of Earth we seemed to float,
Drawn by that vision, -- hardly felt the breeze
That left one glassy ripple from the boat
To break the smoothness of the silken seas;
And far and near, as from the lucent air,
Came vesper chimes and wave-born melodies.
So might one die, if Death his soul could bear
So gently, Heaven before him float so fair!

XXII.

This was the gate to Artists' Fairyland.
The palpitating waters kissed the shores,
Gurgled in sparkling coils beneath the oars,
And lapped the marble stairs on either hand,
Summoning Beauty to her holiday;
While noiseless gondolas at palace-doors
Waited, and over all, in charmed delay,
San Marco's moon gazed from her golden stand!

XXIII.

A silent city! where no clattering wheels
Jar the white pavement: cool the streets, and dumb,
Save for a million whispering waves, which come
To light their mellow darkness: where the peals
Of Trade's harsh clarions never vex the ear,
But the wide blue above, the green below,
Her pure Palladian palaces insphere, --
Piles, on whose steps the grass shall never grow!

XXIV.

I sat within the courts of Veronese
And saw his figures breathe luxurious air,
And felt the sunshine of their lustrous hair.
Beneath the shade of Titian's awful trees
I stood, and watched the Martyr's brow grow cold:
Then came Giorgione, with his brush of gold,
To paint the dames that make his memory fair, --
The happy dames that never shall be old!

XXV.

But most I lingered in that matchless hall
Where soars Madonna with adoring arms
Outspread, while deepening glories round her fall,
And every feature of her mortal charms
Becomes immortal, at the Father's call:
Beneath her, silver-shining cherubs fold
The clouds that bear her, slowly heavenward rolled:
The Sacred Mystery broodeth over all!

XXVI.

And still, as one asleep, I turned away
To see the crimson of her mantle burn
In sunset clouds, the pearly deeps of day
Filled with cherubic faces, -- ah, to spurn
My hopeless charts of pictures yet to be,
And feed the fancies of a swift despair,
Which mocked me from the azure arch of air,
And from the twinkling beryl of the sea!

XXVII.

If this bright bloom were inaccessible
Which clad the world, and thus my senses stung,
How could I catch the mingled tints that clung
To cheek and throat, and softly downward fell
In poise of shoulders and the breathing swell
Of woman's bosom? How the life in eyes,
The glory on the loosened hair that lies,
The nameless music o'er her being flung?

XXVIII.

Or how create anew the sterner grace
In man's heroic muscles sheathed or shown,
Whether he stoops from the immortal zone
Bare and majestic, god in limbs and face;
Or lies, a faun, beside his mountain flock;
Or clasps, a satyr, nymphs among the vine;
Or kneels, a hermit, in his cell of rock;
Or sees, a saint, his palms of glory shine!

XXIX.

I took a fisher from the Lido's strand,
A youthful shape, by toil and vice unworn,
Upon his limbs a golden flush like morn,
And on his mellow cheek the roses tanned
Of health and joy. Perchance the soul I missed,
From mine exalted fancy might be born:
With eye upraised and locks by sunshine kissed,
I painted him as the Evangelist.

XXX.

In vain! -- the severance of his lips expressed
Kisses of love whereon his fancy fed,
And the warm tints each other sweetly wed
In slender limb and balanced arch of breast,
So keen with life, so marked in every line
With unideal nature, none had guessed
The dream that cheered me and the faith that led;
But human all I would have made divine!

XXXI.

I found a girl before San Marco's shrine
Kneeling in gilded gloom: her tawny hair
Rippled across voluptuous shoulders bare,
And something in the altar-taper's shine
Sparkled like falling tears. This girl shall be
My sorrowing Magdalen, as guilty-sweet.
I said, as when, pure Christ! she knelt to thee,
And laid her blushing forehead on thy feet!

XXXII.

She sat before me. Like a sunny brook
Poured the unbraided ripples softly round
The balmy dells, but left one snowy mound
Bare in its beauty: then I met her look, --
The conquering gaze of those bold eyes, which made,
Ah, God! the unrepented sin more fair
Than Magdalen kneeling with her humbled hair,
Or Agatha beneath the quaestor's blade!

XXXIII.

What if my chaste ambition wavered then?
What if the veil from mine own nature fell
And I obeyed the old Circean spell,
And lived for living, not for painted men?
Youth follows Life, as bees the honey bell,
And nightingales the northward march of Spring,
And once, a dazzled moth, must try his wing,
Though but to scorch it in the blaze of Hell!

XXXIV.

Why only mimic what I might possess?
The cheated sense that revels in delight
Mocked at my long denial: touch and sight,
The warmth of wine, the sensuous loveliness
Of offered lips and bosoms breaking through
The parted boddice: winds whose faint caress
And wandering hands the daintiest dreams renew:
The sea's absorbing and embracing blue

XXXV.

Of these are woven our being's outward veil
Of rich sensation, which has power to part
The pure, untroubled soul and drunken heart, --
A screen of gossamer, but giants fail
The bright, enchanted web to rend in twain.
Two spirits dwell in us: one chaste and pale,
A still recluse, whose garments know no stain,
Whose patient lips are closed upon her pain:

XXXVI.

The other bounding to her cymbal's clang,
A bold Bacchante, panting with the race
Of joy, the triumph and the swift embrace,
And gathering in one cup the grapes that hang
From every vine of Youth: around her head
The royal roses bare their hearts of red;
Music is on her lips, and from her face
Fierce freedom shines and wild, alluring grace!

XXXVII.

Who shall declare that ever side by side
To weave harmonious fate these spirits wrought?
To whom came ever one's diviner pride
And one's full measure of delight, unsought?
Who dares the cells of blood enrich, exhaust,
Or trust his fortune unto either guide? --
So interbalanced hangs the equal cost
Of what is ordered and of what is taught!

XXXVIII.

Surprised to Passion, my awakened life
Whirled onward in a warm, delirious maze,
At first reluctant, and with pangs of strife
That dashed their bitter o'er my honeyed days,
Until my soul's affrighted nun withdrew
And left me free: for light that other's chains
As garlands seemed, and fresh her wine as dew,
And wide her robes to hide the banquet-stains!

XXXIX.

Those were the days of Summer which intrude
Their sultry fervor on the realm of Spring,
And push its buds to sudden blossoming;
When earth and air, with panting love imbued,
O'erpower the subject life, and ceaseless dart
All round the warm horizon of the heart
Heat-lightnings in the sky of youth, which first
Regains its freshness when the bolts have burst.

XL.

And thus, when that Sirocco's breath had passed,
A refluent wind of health swept o'er my brain,
Cold, swift, and searching; and before it fast
Fled the uncertain, misty shapes which cast
Their glory on my dreams. The ardor vain
That would have snatched, unearned, slow labor's crown,
Was dimmed; and half with courage, half with pain,
I guessed the path that led to old renown.

XLI.

I turned my pictures, pitying the while
My boyish folly, for I could not yet
The dear deception of my youth forget,
And though it parted from me like an isle
Of the blue sea behind some rushing keel,
Still from the cliffs its temple seemed to smile,
Fairer in fading: future morns reveal
No bowers so bright as yesterdays conceal.

XLII.

The laughing boys that on the marble piers
Lounge with their dangling feet above the wave;
The tawny faces of the gondoliers;
The low-browed girl, whose scarce-unfolded years
But half the lightning of her glances gave; --
I sketched in turn, with busy hand and brave,
And crushed my clouded hope's recurring pang,
And sweet "Ti voglio bene assa'i" sang.

XLIII.

Then came the hour when I must say farewell
To silent Venice in her crystal nest, --
When with the last peals of San Marco's bell
Her hushed and splendid pageant closed, and fell
Like her own jewel in the ocean's breast.
Belfry, and dome, and the superb array
Of wave-born temples floated far away,
And the dull shores received me in the west.

XLIV.

And past the Euganaean hills, that break
The Adrian plain, I wandered to the Po,
And saw Ferrara, vacant in her woe,
Clasp the dim cell wherein her children take
A ghastly pride from her immortal shame;
And hailed Bologna, for Caracci's sake, --
The master bold, who scorned to court his fame,
But bared his arm and dipped his brush in flame.

XLV.

Through many a dark-red dell of Apennine,
With chestnut-shadows in its brookless bed,
By flinty slopes whose only dew is wine,
And hills the olives gave a hoary head,
I climbed to seek the sunny vale where flows
The Tuscan river, -- where, when Art was dead,
Lorenzo's spring thawed out the ages' snows,
And green with life the eternal plant arose!

XLVI.

At last, from Pratolino's sloping crest,
I saw the far, aerial, purple gleam,
As from Earth's edge a fairer orb might seem
In softer air and sunnier beauty drest,
And onward swift with panting bosom pressed,
Like one whose wavering will pursues a dream
And shrinks from waking; but the vision grew
With every step distinct in form and hue:

XLVII.

Till on the brink of ancient Fiesole,
Mute, breathless, hanging o'er the dazzling deeps
Of broad Val d'Arno, which the sinking day
Drowned in an airy bath of rosy ray, --
An atmosphere more dream - imbued than Sleep's, --
My feet were stayed; with sweet and sudden tears,
And startled lifting of the cloud that lay
Upon the landscape of the future years!

XLVIII.

I leaned against a cypress-bole, afraid
With blind foretaste of coming ecstasy,
So rarely on the soul the joy to be
Prophetic dawns, so frequent falls the shade
Of near misfortune! All my senses sang,
And lark-like soared and jubilant and free
The flock of dreams, that from my bosom sprang,
O'er yonder towers to hover and to hang!

XLIX.

Then, as the dusty road I downward paced,
A phantom arch was ever builded nigh
To span my coming, luminous and high;
And airy columns, crowned with censers, graced
The dreamful pomp, -- with many a starry bell
From garlands woven in the fading sky,
And noiseless fountains shimmered, as they fell,
Like meteor-fires that haunt a fairy dell!

L

Two maids, upon a terrace that o'er-hung
The highway, lightly strove in laughing play
Each one the other's wreath to snatch away,
With backward-bending heads, and arms that clung
In intertwining beauty. Both were young,
And one as my Madonna-dream was fair;
And she the garland from the other's hair
Caught with a cunning hand, and poised, and flung.

LI.

A fragrant ring of jasmine flowers, it sped,
Dropping their elfin trumpets in its flight,
And downward circling, on my startled head
Some angel bade the diadem alight!
The cool green leaves and breathing blossoms white
Embraced my brow with dainty, mute caress:
I stood in rapt amazement, soul and sight
Surrendered to that vision's loveliness.

LII.

She, too, stood, smitten with the wondrous chance
Whereby the freak of her unwitting hand
A stranger's forehead crowned. I saw her stand,
Most like some flying Hour, that, in her dance
Perceives a god, and drops her courser's rein:
Then, while I drank the fulness of her glance,
Crept over throat and cheek a bashful stain, --
She fled, yet flying turned, and looked again.

LIII.

And I went forward, consecrated, blest,
And garlanded like some returning Faun
From Pan's green revels in the wood land's breast.
Here was a crown to give Ambition rest
A wreath for infant Love to slumber on
And blended, both in mine enchantment shone,
Till Love was only Fame familiar grown,
And Fame but Love triumphantly expressed!

LIV.

Such moments come to all whom Art elects
To serve her, -- Poet, Fainter, Sculptor feel,
Once in their lives the shadows which conceal
Achievement lifted, and the world's neglects
Are spurned behind them, like the idle dust
Whirled from Hyperion's golden chariot-wheel:
Once vexing doubt is dumb, and long disgust
Allayed, and Time and Fate and Fame are just!

LV.

It is enough, if underneath our rags
A single hour the monarch's purple shows.
In dearth of praise no true ambition flags,
And by his self-belief the student knows
The master: nor was ever wholly dark
The Artist's life. Though timid fortune lags
Behind his hope, there comes a day to mark
The late renown that round his name shall close.

LVI.

I dared not question my prophetic pride,
But entered Florence as a conqueror,
To whom should ope the Tribune's sacred door,
Hearing his step afar. On every side
Great works fed faith in greatness that endured
Irrecognition, patient to abide
Neglect that stung, temptations that allured, --
Supremely proud and in itself secured

LVII.

From the warm bodies Titian loved to paint,
Where life still palpitates in languid glow;
From Raphael's heads of Virgin and of Saint,
Bright with divinest message; from the slow
And patient grandeur Leonardo wrought;
From soft, effeminate Carlo Dolce, faint
With vapid sweetness, to the Titan thought
That shaped the dreams of Michel Angelo:

LVIII.

From each and all, through varied speech, I drew
One sole, immortal revelation. They
No longer mocked me with the hopeless view
Of power that with them died, but gave anew
The hope of power that cannot pass away
While Beauty lives: the passion of the brain
Demands possession, nor shall yearn in vain:
Its nymph, though coy, did never yet betray.

LIX.

It is not much to earn the windy praise
That fans our early promise: every child
Wears childhood's grace: in unbelieving days
One spark of earnest faith left undefiled
Will burn and brighten like the lamps of old,
And men cry out in haste: "Behold, a star!"
Deeming some glow-worm light, that soon is cold,
The radiant god's approaching avatar!

LX.

So I was hailed: and something fawnlike, shy,
Taught from the loneliness of mountainglens,
That clung around me, drew the stranger's eye
And held my life apart from other men's.
Their prophecies were sweet, and if they breathed
But ignorant hope and shallow pleasure, I
No less from them already saw bequeathed
The crown by avaricious Glory wreathed.

LXI.

And, climbing up to San Miniato's height,
Among the cypresses I made a nest
For wandering fancy: down the shimmering west
The Arno slid in creeping coils of light:
O'er Boboli's fan-like pines the city lay
In tints that freshly blossomed on the sight,
Enringed with olive-orchards, thin and gray,
Like moonlight falling in the lap of day.

LXII.

There sprang, before me, Giotto's ivory tower;
There hung, a planet, Brunelleschi's dome:
Of living dreams Val d'Arno seemed the home,
From far Careggi's dim-seen laurel bower
To Bellosguardo, smiling o'er the vale;
And pomp and beauty and supremest power,
Blending and brightening in their bridal hour,
Made even the blue of Tuscan summers pale!

LXIII.

Immortal Masters! Ye who drank this air
And made it spirit, as the must makes wine,
Be ye the intercessors of my prayer,
Pure Saints of Art, around her holy shrine!
The purpose of your lives bestow on mine, --
The child-like heart, the true, laborious hand
And pious vision, -- that my soul may dare
One day to climb the summits where ye stand!

LXIV.

Say, shall my memory walk in yonder street
Beside your own, ye ever-living shades?
Shall pilgrims come, gray men and pensive maids,
To pluck this moss because it knew my feet,
And forms of mine move o'er the poet's mind
In thoughts that still to haunting music beat,
And Love and Grief and Adoration find
Their speech in pictures I shall leave behind?

LXV.

Ah! they, the Masters, toiled where I but dreamed!
The crown was ready ere they dared to claim
One leaf of honor: then, around them gleamed
No Past, where rival souls of splendid name
At once inspire and bring despair of fame.
A naked heaven was o'er them, where to set
Their kindled stars; and thus the palest yet
Exalted burns o'er all that later came.

LXVI.

They unto me were gods: for, though I felt
That nobler't was, creating, even to fail
Than grandly imitate, my spirit knelt,
Unquestioning, to their authority.
I learned their lives, intent to find a tale
Resembling mine, and deemed my vision free
When most their names obscured with flattering veil
That light of Art which first arose in me.

LXVII.

And less for Beauty's single sake inspired
Than old interpretations to attain,
I sought with restless hand and heated brain
Their truth to reach, -- by his example fired
Who sketched his mountain-goats on rock or sand,
And his, the wondrous boy, beneath whose hand,
Conferring sanctity with sweet disdain,
A cask became a shrine, a hut a fane.

LXVIII.

My studio was the street, the market place:
I suared the golden spirit of the sun
Amid his noonday freedom, -- swiftly won
The unconscious gift from many a passing face, --
The spoils of color caught from dazzling things,
From unsuspecting forms the sudden grace,
alive with hope to find the hidden wings
Of the Divine that from the Human springs.

LXIX.

A jasmine garland hung above my bed,
Withered and dry: beneath, a picture hung, --
A shadowy likeness of the maid who flung
That crown of welcome. On my sleeping head
The glory of the vanished sunset fell,
And still the leaves reviving fragrance shed,
And dreams crept out of every jasminebell,
Inebriate with their fairy hydromel.

LXX.

Where was my lost Armida? She had grown
A phantom shape, a star of dreams, alone;
And I no longer dared to touch he dim
Unfinished features, lest my brush should mar
A memory swift as wings of cherubim
That unto saints in prayer may flash afar
Up the long steep of rifted cloudy walls,
Wherethrough the overpowering glory falls.

LXXI.

But, as the Rose will lend its excellence
To the unlovely earth in which it grows,
Until the sweet earth says, "I serve the Rose,"
So, penetrant with her was every sense.
She filled me as the moon a sleeping sea,
That shows the night her orb reflected thence,
Yet deems itself all darkness: silently
The dream of her betrayed itself in me.

LXXII.

I had a cherished canvas, whereupon
An antique form of inspiration grew
To other life: beneath a sky of blue.
Filled with the sun and limpid yet with dawn,
A palm-tree rose: its glittering leaves were bowed
As though to let no ray of sunlight through
Their folded shade, and kept the early dew
On all the flowers within its hovering cloud.

LXXIII.

Madonna's girlish form, arrested there
With poising foot, and parted lips, and eyes
With innocent wonder bright and glad surprise,
And hands half-clasped in rapture or in prayer,
Met the Announcing Angel. On her sight
He burst in splendor from the sunny air,
Making it dim around his perfect light,
And in his hand the lily-stem he bare.

LXXIV.

Naught else, save, nestling near the Virgin's feet,
A single lamb that wandered from its flock,
And one white dove, upon a sprintered rock
Above the yawning valleys, dim with heat.
Beyond, the rifted hills of Gilead flung
Their phantom shadows on the burning veil,
And, far away, one solitary, pale
Vermilion cloud above the Desert hung.

LXXV.

I painted her, a budding, spotless maid,
That has not dreamed of man, -- for God's high choice
Too humble, yet too pure to be afraid,
And from the music of the Angel's voice
And from the lily's breathing heart of gold
Inspired to feel the mystic beauty laid
Upon her life: the secret is untold,
Unconsciously the message is obeyed.

LXXVI.

How much I failed, myself alone could know;
How much achieved, the world. My picture took
Its place with others in the public show,
And many passed, and some remained to look.
While I, in flushed expectancy and fear,
Stood by to watch the gazers come and go,
To note each pausing face, perchance to hear
A careless whisper tell me Fame was near.

LXXVII.

"'T is Ghirlandajo's echo!" some would say;
And others, "Here one sees a pupil's hand:"
"An innovation, crude, but fairly planned,"
Remarked the connoisseur, and moved away,
Sublimely grave: but one, sometimes, would stand
Silent, with brightening face. No more than this,
Though voiceless praise, ambition could demand,
And for an hour I felt the Artist's bliss.

LXXVIII.

One day, a man of haughty port drew night, --
A man beyond his prime, but still unbent,
Though the first flakes of age already lent
Their softness to his brow: his wandering eye
Allowed its stately patronage to glide
Along the pictures, till, with gaze intent
He fixed on mine, and startled wonderment
Displaced his air of cold, indifferent pride.

LXXIX.

"Signor Marchese!" cried, approaching, one
Who seemed a courtly comrade, "can it be
That in these daubs the touch of Art you see, --
These foreign moons that ape our native sun?"
To whom he said: "the Virgin, Count! 'T is she,
My Clelia! like a portrait just begun,
Where the design is yet but half avowed,
And shimmers on you through a misty cloud:

LXXX.

"So, here, I find her. 'T is a marvellous chance.
Your painters choose some peasant beauty's face
For their Madonnas, striving to enhance
By softer tints her coarse plebeian grace
To something heavenly. Here, the features wear
A noble stamp: who painted this, is fit
That Clelia's self beside his canvas sit, --
His hand, methinks, might fix her shadow there."

LXXXI.

'T is true, -- you wed her then, as I have heard,
And to the young Colonna?" "Even so:
We made the family compact long ago.
A wilful blade, they say, but every bird
Is wiser when he owns a nested mate;
And I shall lose her ere the winter's snow
Falls on the Apennine, -- a father's fate!
But from these two my house again may grow.

LXXXII.

"She lost, her picture in the lonely hall
Shall speak, from silent lips, her sweet 'good-night!'
And soothe my childless fancy. I'll invite
This painter to the work: his brush has all
The graces of a hand which takes de light
In noble forms, -- and thus may best recall,
Though nameless he, what Palma's brush divine
Found in the beauteous mothers of her line!"

LXXXIII.

I heard; but trembling, turned away to hide
An ecstasy no longer to be quelled, --
The lover's longing and the artist's pride:
For, though the growing truth of life dispelled
My rash ideal, my very blood had caught
The fine infection: from my heart it welled,
Colored each feeling, perfumed every thought,
And gave desire what hope had left un sought!

LXXXIV.

'T was blind, unthinking rapture. Who was she,
Pandolfo's daughter, young Colonna's bride,
The pampered maiden of a house of pride,
That I, though but in thought, should bend the knee
Before her beauty? She was set too high,
And her white lustre wore patrician stains,
Like sunshine falling through heraldic panes
That rise between the altar and the sky

LXXXV.

Next day the Marquis came. With an tique air
Of nicest courtesy, his words did sue
The while his tone commanded: could I spare
Some hours? -- a portrait only, it was true,
But the Great masters painted portraits too,
Even Raffaello: at his palace, then!
The Lady Clelia would await me there:
His thanks, -- to-morrow, should it be? -- at ten.

LXXXVI.

But when the hour approached, and o'er me hung
The shadow of the high Palladian walls,
My heart beat fast in feverish intervals:
I half drew back: the lackeys open flung
The brazen portals, -- broad before me rose
The marble stairs, -- above them gleamed the halls,
And I ascended, as a man who goes
To see some unknown gate of life unclose.

LXXXVII.

They bore my easel to a spacious room
Whose northern windows curbed the eager day,
But under them a sunny garden lay:
A fountain sprang: the myrtles were in bloom,
And I remembered, -- "ere the winter's snow
Cloaks Apennine" Colonna bears away
Her who shall wear them. 'T is a woman's doom,
I laughed, -- she seeks no other: let her go!

LXXXVIII.

Lo! rustling forward with a silken sound,
Her living self advanced! -- as fair and frail
As May's first lily in a Northern vale,
As light in airy grace, as when she crowned
Her painter's head, -- the Genius of my Fame!
Ah, words are vain where Music's tongue would fail,
And Color's brightest miracles be found
Imperfect, cold, to match her as she came!

LXXXIX.

The blood that gathered, stifling, at my heart,
Surged back again, and burned on cheek and brow.
"Your model!" smiled the Marquis, "you'll avow
That she is not unworthy of your art.
I see you note the likeness, -- it is strange:
But since you dreamed her face so nearly, now
You'll paint it, -- as she is, -- I want no change:"
Then left, with wave of hand and stately bow.

XC.

A girlish wonder dawned in Clelia's face.
Her frank, pure glances seemed to question mine,
Or scanned my features, seeking to retrace
Her way to me along some gossamer line
Of memory, almost found, then lost again.
Meanwhile, I set my canvas in its place,
Recalled the artist-nature, though with pain,
And tamed to work the tumult of my brain.

XCI.

"I give you trouble," then she gently said.
My brow was damp, my hand unsteady. "Nay,"
I answered: "'t is the grateful price I pay
For that fair wreath you cast upon my head."
She started, blushing: all at once she found
The shining clew, -- her silvery laughter made
The prelude to her words: "the fowers will fade,
But by your hand am I forever crowned!"





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net