Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN: BOOK 3. THE CHILD, by BAYARD TAYLOR


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN: BOOK 3. THE CHILD, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Sad son of earth, if ever to thy care
Last Line: "I come!"" I cried; and with the cry awoke."
Alternate Author Name(s): Taylor, James Bayard
Subject(s): Children; Earth; Fate; Life; Saints; Childhood; World; Destiny


I.

SAD Son of Earth, if ever to thy care
Some god entrust the dazzling gift of joy,
Within thy trembling hands the burden bear
As if the frailest crystal shell it were,
One thrill of exultation might destroy!
Look to thy feet, take heed where thou shalt stand,
And arm thine eyes with fear, thy heart with prayer,
Like one who travels in a hostile land!

II.

For, ever hovering in the heart of day
Unseen, above thee wait the Powers malign,
Who scent thy bliss as vultures scent decay:
Unveil thy secret, give one gladsome sign,
Send up one thought to chant beside the lark
In airy poise, and lo! the sky is dark
With swooping wings, -- thy gift is snatched away
Ere dies the rapture which proclaimed it thine!

III.

We plan the houses which are never built:
The volumes which our precious thoughts enclose
Are never written: in the falchion's hilt
Sleeps nobler daring than the nero shows:
And never Fate allows a life to give
The measure of a soul, -- but incomplete
Expression and imperfect action meet,
To form the tintless sketch of what we live.

IV.

I would not see the path that led apart
My Clelia's feet, as 't were on hills of cloud,
But deemed the saintler light, whereto I bowed
In reverence of mine adoring heart,
The mother's nature: day by day I smiled,
As higher, further drawn, my dreams avowed
Diviner types of beauty, -- whence beguiled,
Her robes of heaven I wrapped around her child.

V.

Our daily miracle was he: a bud
Steeped in the scents of Eden, balmy-fair,
The world's pure morning bright upon his hair,
And life's unopened roses in his blood!
In the blank eyes of birth a timorous star
Of wonder sparkled, as the soul awoke,
And from his tongue a brook-like babbling broke, --
A strange, melodious language from afar!

VI.

His body showed, in every dimpled swell,
The pink and pearl of Ocean's loveliest shell,
And swift the little pulses throbbed along
Their turquoise paths, the soft breast rose and fell
As to the music of a dancing song,
And all the darling graces which belong
To babyhood, and breathe from every limb,
Made life more beautiful, revealed in him.

VII.

His mother's face I dared not paint again,
For now, infected by her mystic dread,
The picture smote me with reproachful pain;
But often, bending o'er his cradle-bed
To learn by heart the wondrous tints and lines
That charmed me so, my kindling fancy said:
"By thee, my Cherub, shall mine art be led
To clasp the Truth it now but half divines!

VIII.

"If I have sinned, to set thee in the place
Of Infant God, the hand that here offends
Shall owe its cunning to thy growing grace,
And from thy loveliness make late amends.
Six summers more, and I shall bid thee stand
Before me, with uplift, prophetic face,
And there St. John shall grow beneath my hand, --
A bright boy-angel in a desert land!

IX.

"Six summers more, and then, as Ganymede's,
Thy rosy limbs against the dark-blue sky
Shall press the eagle's plumage as he speeds;
Or darling Hylas, 'mid Scamander's reeds,
Borrow thy beauty: six again, and I
Shall from thy lithesome adolescence take
My young St. George, my victor knight, and make
Beneath thy sword once more the Dragon die!

X.

"Art thou not mine? and wilt thou not repay
My love with help unconsciously bestowed?
In thy fresh being, in its bright abode,
Shall I not find my morning-star, my day?
Rejoice! one life, at least, shall deathless be, --
One perfect form grow ripe, but not decay:
Through mine own blood shall I my triumph see,
And give to glory what I steal from thee!"

XI.

One day, in indolence of sheer despair,
I sat with hanging arm, the colors dried
Upon my palette: sudden, at my side
Knelt Clelia, lifting through her falling hair
A look that stabbed me with its tearful care;
And words that came like swiftly-dropping tears
Made my heart ache and shiver in mine ears,
As thus in sorrow and in love she cried:

XII.

"O Egon, mine the fault! I should have dared
Defy the compact, -- should have set you, love,
As far in station as in soul above
These mocking wants -- mine idle fortune shared
With your achievement! Coward heart, that fled
The post of righteous battle, and prepared
For you, whose hand and brain I could not wed,
Meaning to bless, a martyrdom instead!

XIII

"I hold you back, alas! when you aspire;
I chain your spirit when it pants to soar:
I, proud to kindle, glad to feed the fire,
But heap cold ashes on its fading core!
Command me, Egon! shall I seek the sire
Whose lonely house might welcome me once more,
And mine -- my twain beloved? Let me make
This late, last trial for our future's sake!"

XIV.

"Not thine, my Clelia!" soothing her, I said,
"Not thine the fault -- nor ours; but Demons wait
To thwart the shining purposes of Fate,
And not a crown descends on any head
Ere half its fairest leaves are plucked or dead:
Yet be it as thou wilt, -- who bore thee thence
Must in thy father's house thee reinstate,
Or bear -- not thou -- the weight of his offence.

XV.

"Come, thou art pale, and sad, and sick for home,
My summer lily -- nursling of the sun!
But thou shalt blossom in the breeze of Rome,
And dip thy feet in Baiae's whispering foam,
And in the torn Abruzzi valleys, dun
With August stubble, watch thy wild fawn run, --
I swear it! With the melting of the snow,
If Fortune or if Ruin guide, we go!"

XVI.

And soon there came, as 't were an answering hint
From heaven, the tardy gold Madonna brought, --
But I unto that end had gladly wrought
Heart's-blood to coin, and drained the ruddy mint
Of life, again the mellow songs to hear
That told how sunward turned her happy thought:
That sang to sleep her soul's unbodied fear,
And led her through the darkness of the year!

XVII.

Alas! 't was not so written. Day by day
Her cheek grew thin, her footstep faint and slow;
And yet so fondly, with such hopeful play
Her pulses beat, they masked the coming woe
Joy dwelt with her, and in her eager breath
His cymbals drowned the hollow drums of Death:
Life showered its promise, surer to betray,
And the false Future crumbled fast away.

XVIII.

Aye, she was happy! God be thanked for this,
That she was happy! -- happier than she knew,
Had even the hope that cheated her been true;
For from her face there beamed such wondrous bliss,
As cannot find fulfilment here, and dies.
God's peace and pardon touched me in her kiss,
Heaven's morning dawned and brightened in her eyes,
And o'er the Tuscan arched remoter skies!

XIX.

Dazzled with light, I could not see the close
So near and dark, and every day that won
Some warmer life from the returning sun,
Took from the menaces that interpose
Between the plan and deed. I dared to dream
Her dreams, and paint them lovelier as they rose,
Till from the echoing hollows one wild stream
Sprang to proclaim the melting of the snows.

XX.

Then -- how she smiled! And I the casement wide
To that triumphant sound must throw, despite
The bitter air; and, soothed and satisfied,
She slept until the middle watch of night.
I watched beside her: dim the taper's light
Before the corner-shrine, -- the walls in shade
Glimmered, but through the window all was white
In crystal moonshine, and the winds were laid.

XXI.

And awe and shuddering fell upon my soul.
Out of the silence came, if not a sound,
The sense of sphery music, far, profound,
As Earth, revolving on her moveless pole,
Might breathe to God: and at the casement shone
Something -- a radiant bird it seemed, -- alone,
And beautiful, and strange: its plumes around
Played the soft fire of stars whence it had flown.

XXII.

The beak of light, the eye of flame, -- dispread
The hovering wings, as winnowing music out;
And richer still the glory grew about
The shadowy room, crept over Clelia's bed
And hung, a shimmering circle, round her head:
Then marked I that her eyes were wide and clear,
Nor wondered at the vision. All my fear
Fled when she spoke, and these the words she said:

XXIII.

"Thou call'st, and I am ready. Ah, I see
The shining field of lilies in the moon,
So white, so fair! Yet how depart with thee,
And leave the bliss of threefold life so soon?
Peace, fainting heart! Though sweet it were to stay,
Sweet messenger, thy summons I obey:
And now the mountains part, and now the free
Wide ocean gleams beneath a golden day!

XXIV.

"How still they lie, the olive-sandalled slopes,
The gardens and the towers! But floating o'er
Their shaded sleep, lo! some diviner shore,
Deep down the bright, unmeasured distance, opes
Its breathing valleys: wait for me! I haste,
But am not free: till morning let me taste
The last regret of faithful love once more,
Then shall I walk with thee you lilied floor!"

XXV.

The bright Thing fled, the moon went down the west.
Long lay she silent, sleepless; nor might I
Break with a sound the hush of ecstasy,
The strange, unearthly peace, till from his rest
The child awoke with soft, imploring cry:
Then she, with feeble hands outreaching, laid
His little cheek to hers, and softly made
His murmurs cease upon her mother-breast.

XXVI.

My trance dissolved at once, and falling prone
In agony of tears, as falls a wave
With choked susurrus in some hollow cave,
Brake forth my life's lament and bitter moan.
I shook with passionate grief: I murmured: "Stay!
Have I not sworn to give thee back thine own?
False was the token, false!" She answered: "Nay,
It says, Farewell! and yonder dawns the day."

XXVII.

No more! I said farewell: withdrawn afar,
Still faintly came to me, its elasping shore,
When morning drowned the wintry morning-star,
Her ebbing life; then paused -- and came no more!
And blue the mocking sky, and loud the roar
Of loosened waters, leaping down the glen:
The songs of children and the shouts of men
Flouted the awful Shadow at my door!

XXVIII.

And chill my heart became, a sepulchre
Sealed with the sudden ice of frozen tears:
I sat in stony calm, and looked at her,
Flown in the brightness of her beauteous years,
And not a pulse with conscious sorrow beat;
Nor, when they robed her in her winding-sheet,
Did any pang my silent bosom stir,
But pain, like bliss, seemed of the things that were.

XXIX.

With cold and changeless face beside her grave
I stood, and coldly heard the shuddering sound
Of coffin echoes, smothered underground:
The tints I marked, the mournful mountains gave, --
Faces and garments of the throngs around, --
The sexton's knotted hands, the light and shade
That strangely through the moving colors played, --
So, feeling dead, Art's habit held me bound!

XXX.

Yet, very slowly, Feeling's self was born
Of chance forgetfulness: when meadows took
A greener hem along the winding brook,
And buds were balmy in the fresh Maymorn,
Oft would I turn, as though her step to wait;
Or ask the songless echoes why so late
Her song delayed; or from my lonely bed
At midnight start, and weep to find her fed!

XXXI.

And with the pains of healing came a care
For him, her child: she had not wholly died;
And what of her lost being he might wear
Was doubly mine through all the years untried,
To love, and give me love. Him would I bear
Beyond the Alps, forth from this fatal zone,
To make his mother's land and speech his own,
And keep her beauty at his father's side!

XXXII.

So forth we fared: the faithful peasant nurse
Who guarded now his life, should guard it still.
We hastened on: there seemed a brooding curse
Upon the valley. Many a brawling rill
We left behind, and many a darksome hill,
Long fens, and clay-white rivers of the plain,
Then mountains clad in thunder, -- and again
Soared the high Alps, and sparkled, white and chill.

XXXIII.

To seek some quiet, southward-opening vale
Beside the Adige, was my first design;
And sweetly hailed along the Brenner's line
With songs of Tyrol, welcomed by the gale
That floated from the musky slopes of vine,
With summer on its wings, I wandered down
To fix our home in some delightful town, --
But when the first we reached, there came a sign.

XXXIV.

The bells were tolling, -- not with nuptial joy,
But heavily, sadly: down the winding street
The pattering tumult came of children's feet,
Followed by men who bore a snow-pale boy
Upon a flowery bier. The sunshine clung,
Caressing brow and cheek, -- he was so young
Even Nature felt her darling's loss, -- and sweet
The burial hymn by childish mourners sung.

XXXV.

"He must not see the dead!" Thus unto me
The nurse, and muffled him with trembling hand.
But something touched, in that sad harmony,
The infant's soul: he struggled and was free
A moment, saw the dead, nor could withstand
The strange desire that hungered in his eye,
And stretched his little arms, and made a cry, --
While she, in foolish terror, turned to me:

XXXVI.

"Now, God have mercy, master! rest not here,
Or he will die!" 'T was but the causeless whim
Of ignorance, and yet, a formless fear
O'ercame my heart, and darkly menaced him
As with his mother's fond, foreboding dread:
Then, wild with haste to lift the shadow dim
Which seemed already settling round his head,
That hour we left, and ever southward sped.

XXXVII.

Past wondrous mountains, peaked with obelisks,
With pyramids and domes of dolomite
That burned vermilion in the dying light, --
Crags where the hunter with a thousand risks
The steinbok follows, -- world of strength and song
Under the stars among the fields of white,
While deep below, the broad vale winds along
Through corn and wine, secure from winter's wrong!

XXXVIII.

My plan complete, the foolish servitress
Back to her dark Bohemian home I sent,
And gave my boy to one whose gentleness
Fell gentlier from her Tuscan tongue. We went
By lonely roads, where over Garda's lake
Their brows the cloven-hearted mountains bent,
To lands divine, where Como's waters make
Twin arms, to clasp them for their beauty's sake!

XXXIX.

There ceased my wanderings, finding what I sought:
The charms of water, earth, and air allied, --
Secluded homes, with prospects free and wide
Around a princely world, which thither brought
Only the aspect of its holiday,
And made its emulous, unsleeping pride
Put on the yoke of Nature, and obey
Her mood of ornament, her summer play.

XL.

The shapely hills, whose summits towered remote
In rosy air, might smile in soft disdain
Of palaces that strung a jewelled chain
About their feet, and far-off, seemed to float
On violet-misted waters; yet they wore
Their groves and gardens like a festal train,
And in the mirror of the crystal plain
Steep vied with steep, shore emulated shore!

XLI.

Above Bellagio, on the ridge that leans
To meet, on either side, the parted blue
There is a cottage, which the olive screens
From sight of those who come the pomp to view
Of Villa Serbelloni: thrust apart
Beside a quarry whence the pile they drew, --
A home for simple needs and straitened means,
For lonely labor and a brooding heart.

XLII.

Too young was I, too filled with blood and fire,
To clothe myself with ultimate despair.
Drinking with eager breast that idle air,
Color with eyes new-bathed, that could not tire,
And stung by form, and wooed by moving grace,
And warmed with beauty, should I not aspire
My misty dreams with substance to replace,
Nor ghosts beget, but an immortal race?

XLIII.

Yea! rather close, as in a sainted shrine,
My life's most lovely, tender episode,
Renounce the ordination it bestowed,
And only taste its sacramental wine
In those brief Sabbaths, when the heart demands
Solemn repose and sustenance divine!
Yet lives the Artist in these restless hands,
And waiting, here, the rich material stands!

XLIV.

Ead I not sought, I asked myself, the far
Result, and haughtily disdained the source?
From myriad threads hangs many-stranded Force, --
Compact of gloomy atoms, burns the star!
Of earth are all foundations; and of old
On mounds of clay were lifted to their place
Shafts of eternal temples. We behold
The noble end, whereto no means are base.

XLV.

I loved my work; and therefore vowed to love
All subjects, finding Art in everything, --
The angel's plumage in the bird's plain wing, --
Until such time as I might rise above
The conquered matter, to the power supreme
Which takes, rejects, adorns, -- a rightful king,
Whose hand completes the subtly-hinted scheme,
And blends in equal truth the Fact and Dream!

XLVI.

And now commenced a second life, wherein
Myself and Agatha and Angelo
Beheld the lonely seasons come and go,
Contented, -- whether gray with hoarfrost thin
The aloes stiffened, or the passion-flower
Enriched the summer heats, or autumn shower
Rejoiced the yellow fig-leaves wide to blow: --
So still that life, we scarcely felt its flow.

XLVII.

How guileless, sweet, the infancy he knew,
Loved for his own and for his mother's sake!
How fresh in sunny loveliness he grew,
Fanned by the breezes of the Larian lake.
My little Angelo, my baby-friend,
My boy, my blessing! -- while for him I drew
A thousand futures, brightening to the end;
Long paths of light, with ne'er a cloudy break!

XLVIII.

For, lisping in a sweeter tongue than mine,
'T was his delight around the spot to play
Where fast I wrought in unillusive day, --
Where he might chase from rock or rustling vine
The golden lizard; seek the mellow peach,
Wind-shaken; or, where spread the branchy pine
His coverture of woven shade and shine,
Sleep, lulled by murmurs of the pebbly beach.

XLIX.

Along San Primo's chestnut-shaded sides,
Through fields of thyme and spiky lavender
And yellow broom, wherein the she-goat hides
Her yeanling kid, and wild bees ever stir
The drifted blossoms, -- high and breezy downs, --
I led his steps, and watched his young eye glance
In brightening wonder o'er the fair expanse
Of mountain, lake, and lake-reflected towns!

L.

Or, crossing to the lofty Leccan shore,
I bade him see the Fiume-latte leap
Through shivered rainbows down the hollow steep,
A meteor of the morning; high and hoar
The Alp that fed it leaned against the blue, --
But siren-voices chanted in the roar,
Enticing, mocking: shudderingly he drew
Back from the shifting whirls of endless dew.

LI.

T was otherwise, when borne in dancing bark
Across the wave, where Sommariva's walls
Flash from the starred magnolia's breathing dark,
High o'er its terraced roses, fountain-falls
And bosky laurels. In that garden he
Chirruped and fluttered like a callow lark,
With dim fore-feeling of the azure free,
Sustaining wing and strength of songful glee!

LII.

No thing that I might paint, -- a sunset cloud,
A rosy islet of the amber sky, --
A lily-branch, -- the azure-emerald dye
Of neck and crest that makes the peacock proud, --
Or plume of fern, or berried ivy-braid,
Or sheen of sliding waters, -- e'er could vie
With the least loveliness his form conveyed
In outline, motion, daintiest light and shade.

LIII.

Not yet would I indulge the rapturous task,
The crown of labor; though my weary brain
Ached from the mimicry of Nature's mask,
And yearned for human themes. It was in vain,
My vow, that patient bondage to sustain:
Some unsubdued desire began to ask:
"How shall these soulless images be warmed?
Or Life be learned from matter uninformed?"

LIV.

"Then Life!" I said: "but cautiously and slow, --
Pure human types, that, from the common base
By due degrees the spirit find its place,
And climb to passion and supernal glow
Of Heaven's beatitude. The level track
Once let me tread, nor need to stoop so low
Beneath my dreams, and thus their hope efface, --
But late, in nobler guise, receive them back."

LV.

So, venturing no further, I began
The work I craved, and only what I found
In limber child, or steely-sinewed man,
Or supple maiden, drew: within that bound
Such excellence I saw, as told how much,
Despising truth, I strayed: with reverent touch
God's architecture did my pencil trace
In joint and limb, as in the godlike face.

LVI.

Each part expressed its nicely-measured share
In the mysterious being of the whole:
Not from the eye or lip looked forth the soul,
But made her habitation everywhere
Within the bounds of flesh; and Art might steal,
As once, of old, her purest triumphs there.
Go see the headless Ilioneus kneel,
And thou the torso's agony shalt feel!

LVII.

The blameless spirit of a lofty aim
Sees not a line that asks to be concealed
By dexterous evasion; but, revealed
As truth demands, doth Nature smite with shame
Them, who with artifice of ivy-leaf
Unsex the splendid loins, or shrink the frame
From life's pure honesty, as shrinks a thief,
While stands a hero ignorant of blame!

LVIII.

What joy it was, from dead material forms,
Opaque, one-featured, and unchangeable,
To turn, and track the shifting life that warms
The shape of Man! -- within whose texture dwell
Uncounted lines of beauty, tints unguessed
On luminous height, in softly-shaded dell,
And myriad postures, moving or at rest, --
All phases fair, and each, in turn, the best!

LIX.

The rich ideal promise these convey,
Which in the forms of Earth can never live.
Each plastic soul has yet the power to give
A separate model to its subject clay,
And finely works its cunning likenes out:
To men a block, to me a statue lay
In each, distinct in being, draped about
With mystery, touched with Beauty's random ray!

LX.

Now Fame approached, when I expected least
Her noisy greeting: 't was the olden tale.
Half-scornfully I gave; yet men increased
Their golden worth, the more I felt them fail,
My painful counterfeits of lifeless things.
"Behold!" they cried: "this wondrous artist brings
Each leaf and vein of meadow-blossoms pale,
The agate's streaks, the meal of mothy wings!"

LXI.

And truly, o'er a wayside-weed they raised
A sound of marvel, found in lichen-rust
Of ancient stones a glory, stood amazed
To view a melon, gray with summer dust,
And so these rudimental labors praised,
The Tempter whispered to my flattered ear:
"Why seek the unattained, -- thy fame is here!"
"Avaunt!" I cried: "in mine own soul I trust!"

LXII.

A little while, I thought, and I shall know
The stamp and sentence of my destiny, --
The fateful crisis, whence my life shall be
A power, a triumph, an immortal show
A kindling inspiration: or be classed
(As many a noble brother in the Past)
Pictor Ignotus: as it happens, so
Shall turn the fortunes of my Angelo!

LXIII.

For in his childish life, expanding now,
The spirit dawned which must his future guide, --
The little prattler, with his open brow,
His clear, dark eye, his mouth too sweet for pride,
Too proud for infancy! "My boy, decide,"
I said: "wilt painter be? or rather lord
Over a marble house, a steed and sword?"
His visage flashed: he paused not, but replied:

LXIV.

"Give me a marble house, as white and tall
As Sommariva's! Give me horse and hound,
A golden sword, and servants in the hall,
And thou and I be masters over all,
My father!" In that hope a joy he found,
And oft in freaks of fancied lordship made
The splendors his: ah, boy! thy wish betrayed
The blood that beats to rise, and dare not fall.

LXV.

Did Clelia's spirit yearn, what time she bore
The unborn burden, for her lost estate?
Home-sick and pining, lorn and desolate
Except for love, did she, in thought, count o'er
The graceful charms of that luxurious nest
Wherefrom I stole her? Then was I unblest,
Bave he inherited her pilfered fate,
And trod, for her, Pandolfo's palace-floor.

LXVI.

The current of my dreams, directed thus,
Flowed ever swifter, evermore to him.
Along the coves where stripling boatmen swim
I watched him oft, like Morn's young Genius,
Dropped from her rose-cloud on the silver sand,
Her rosy breath upon each ivory limb
Kissed by the clasping waters, green and dim,
And craved the hour when he should bless my hand.

LXVII.

The seasons came and went. In sun of frost
Twinkled the olive, shook the aspen bough:
In winter whiteness shone Legnone's brow,
Or cooled his fiery rocks in skyey blue
When o'er the ruffled lake the breva tossed
The struggling barks: their cups of snow and dew
The dark magnolias held, and purpling poured
The trampled blood from many a vineyard's hoard.

LXVIII.

Five years had passed, and now the time was nigh
When on the fond result my hand must stake
Its cunning, -- when the slowly-tutored eye
Must lend the heart its discipline, to make
Secure the throbbing hope, to which, elate,
My long ambition clung: and, with a sigh,
"If foiled," I said, "let silence consecrate
My noteless name, and hide my ruined fate!"

LXIX.

It was an autumn morn, when I addressed
Myself unto the work. A violet haze
Subdued the ardor of the golden days:
A glassy solitude was Como's breast:
Far, far away, from out the fading maze
Of mountains, blew the flickering sound of bells:
The earth lay hushed as in a Sabbath rest,
And from the air came voiceless, sweet farewells!"

LXX.

My choicest colors, on the palette spread.
Provoked the appetite: the canvas cleat
Wooed from the easel: o'er his noble head
The faint light fell: his perfect body shed
A sunny whiteness on the atmosphere, --
All aspects gladsomely invited: yet
Across my heart there swept a wave of dread, --
The first lines trembled which my crayon set.

LXXI.

The background, lightly sketched, revealed a wild
Storm-shadowed sweep of Ammon's desert hills,
Whose naked porphyry no dew-fed rills
Touched with descending green, but rent and piled
As thunder-split: behind them, glimmering low,
The falling sky disclosed a lurid bar:
In front, a rocky platform, where, a star
Of lonely life, I meant his form should glow.

LXXII.

The God-selected child, there should he stand,
Alone and rapt, as from the world withdrawn
To seek, amid the desolated land,
His Father's counsel: in one tender hand
A cross of reed, to lightly rest upon,
The other hand a scrolled phylactery
Should, hanging, hold, -- as it the seed might be
Wherefrom the living Gospel shall expand.

LXXIII.

A simple theme: why, therefore, should my faith
In mine own skill forsake me? why should seem
His beauteous presence strangely like a dream, --
His shining form an unsubstantial wraith?
Was it the mother's warning, thus impressed
To stay my hand, or, working in my breast,
That dim, dread Power, that monitor supreme,
Whose mystic ways and works no Scripture saith?

LXXIV.

I dropped the brush, and, to assure my heart,
Now vanquished quite, with quick, impassioned start
Caught up the boy, and kissed him o'er and o'er, --
Cheek, bosom, limbs, -- and felt his pulses beat
Secure existence, till my dread, dispelled,
Became a thing to smile at: then, once more
My hand regained its craft, and followed fleet
The living lines my filmless eyes beheld.

LXXV.

And won those lines, and tracked the subtle play
Where cold, keen light, without a boundary,
Through warmth, lapsed into shadow's mystic gray,
And other light within that shadow lay,
A maze of beauty, -- till, outwearied, he
With drooping eyelid stood and tottering knee;
While I, withdrawn to gaze, with eager lip
Murmured my joy in mine own workmanship.

LXXVI.

I clothed his limbs again, and led him out
To welcome sunshine and his glad reward,
A scarlet belt, a tiny, gilded sword, --
And long our bark, the sleeping shores about
Sped as we willed, that happy afternoon:
And sweet the evening promise (ah! too soon
It came,) of what the morrow should afford, --
An equal service and an equal boon!

LXXVII.

But on the pier a messenger I found
From Milan, where the borrowed name I bore
Was known, he said, and more than half-renowned,
And now a bright occasion offered me
A fairer crown than yet my forehead wore, --
A range of palace-chambers to adorn
With sportive frescoes, nymphs of Earth and Sea,
Pursuing Hours, and marches of the Morn!

LXXVIII.

It steads not now that journey to repeat,
Which flattered, toyed, but nothing sure bestowed.
When four unrestful days were sped, my feet,
With yearning shod, retraced the homeward road,
With each glad minute nearing our retreat, --
Mine eyes, when far away Bellagio showed
Beyond Tremezzo, straining to explore
Some speck of welcome on the distant shore.

LXXIX.

Then came the town, the vineyards and the hill,
The cottage: soft the orange sunset shone
Upon its walls, -- but everything was still,
So still and strange, my heart might well disown
The startled sense that gazed: the door ajar, --
The chambers vacant, -- ashes on the stone
Where lit his torch my shy, protecting Lar, --
Dark, empty, lifeless all: I stood alone!

LXXX.

As one who in an ancient forest walks
In awful midnight, when the moon is dim,
And knows not What behind, or near him, stalks,
And fears the rustling leaf, the snapping limb,
And cannot cry, and scarce can breathe, so great
The nameless Terror, -- thus I sought for him,
Yet feared to find him, lest the darkest fate
Should touch my life and leave it desolate!

LXXXI.

The search was vain: they both had disappeared,
My boy and Agatha, nor missed I aught
Of food, or gold, or pictures. Had she sought,
The nurse, a livelier home, and loved or feared
Too much, to leave him? Or some enemy,
Fell and implacable, this ruin brought, --
This thunder-stroke? No answer could I see,
Nor prop whereon to rest my anguished thought.

LXXXII.

As casts away a drowning man his gold,
I cast the Artist from my life, and forth,
A Father only, wandered: south or north
I knew not, save the heart within me hold
Love's faithful needle, ever towards him drawn,
Felt and obeyed without the conscious will:
And first, by nestling town and purple hill,
To Garda's lake I swiftly hastened on.

LXXXIII.

And thence a new, mysterious impulse led
My steps along the Adige, day by day,
To seek that village where we saw the dead, --
A fantasy wherein some madness lay;
For years had passed, and he a babe so young
That each impression with its object fled.
Not so with mine, -- my roused forebodings flung
That scene to light, and there insanely clung.

LXXXIV.

I found the village, but its people knew
No tidings: wearily awhile I trod
Among black crosses in the churchyard sod,
But who could guess the boy's? and why pursue
A sickly fancy? In that peopled vale
Death is not rare, alas! nor burials few
And soon the grassy coverlet of God
Spreads equal green above their ashes pale.

LXXXV.

'T was eve: upon a lonely mound I sank
That held no more its votive immortelles,
And, over-worn and half-despairing, drank
The vesper pity of the distant bells,
Till sleep or trance descended, and my brain
Forgot its echoes of eternal knells,
Effaced its ceaseless images of pain,
And, blank and helpless, knew repose again.

LXXXVI.

I dreamed, -- or was it dream? My Angelo
Called somewhere out of distant space: I heard,
Like faint but clearest music, every word.
"Come, father, come!" he said; "it shines like snow,
My house of marble: I've a speaking bird:
A thousand roses in my garden grow:
My fountains fall in basins dark as wine:
Come to me, father, -- all is yours and mine!"

LXXXVII.

And then, one fleeting moment, blew aside
The hovering mist of Sleep, and I could trace
The phantom beauty of his joyous face:
And, whitely glimmering, o'er him I espied
A marble porch of stern Palladian grace, --
Then faded all. The rest my heart supplied:
Pandolfo's palace on my vision broke:
"I come!" I cried; and with the cry awoke.





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