WHAT charlatans in this later day Beat at the gates of Art! Each with his trick of speech or brush, -- Forgetting, that apart From all the brawling of an age, Its feverish fantasy, She waits, who only unto Time The soul of Art sets free! God's handmaid Beauty, -- whose touch rounds A dewdrop or a world, -- God-sprung when first through Chaos' night The morning wings unfurled; Beauty, -- who still the secret gives Whispered the ages through, -- Recurrent as the flush of dawn, Essential as the dew. O babblers of some surer guide! -- Knowledge goes changing by; Caprice may bloom its little hour, And creeds are born and die; Still Melos on her worshippers Looks with calm-lidded eyes; Still Helen, though Troy sleeps in dust, Smiles through the centuries; Still she who gleaned on Judah's plain Love in her sheaves doth bind; Still, down the glades of Arden, dance The feet of Rosalind. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DOMESDAY BOOK: GREGORY WENNER by EDGAR LEE MASTERS NICHARCHUS UPON PHIDON HIS DOCTOR by EZRA POUND MERLIN by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON GARDEN WIRELESS by CARL SANDBURG PORTRAIT OF A MACHINE by LOUIS UNTERMEYER |