UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 BENJAMIN PARKE AVERY. 
 
 GIFT OF MRS. AVERY. 
 
 * August, 1896. 
 
 Accessions No.loO nil Class No. 
 
THE 
 
 PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 BY 
 
 BAYARD TAYLOR. 
 
 OF TH1 
 
 UITX71RSITY 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS 
 
 1866. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by 
 
 BAYARD TAYLOR, 
 in the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS : WELCH, BIGELOW, & Co., 
 CAMBRIDGE. 
 
F>r 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 IN regard to the subject of this poem I have 
 nothing to say. It grew naturally out of certain 
 developments in my own mind ; and the story, 
 unsuggested by any legend or detached incident 
 whatever, shaped itself to suit the theme. The 
 work of time, written only as its own necessity 
 prompted, and finished with the care and con 
 science which such a venture demands, I surren 
 der it to the judgment of the reader. 
 
 The form of the stanza which I have adopted, 
 however, requires a word of explanation. I have 
 endeavored to strike a middle course between the 
 almost inevitable monotony of an unvarying stan 
 za, in a poem of this length, and the loose char- 
 
iv INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 acter which the heroic measure assumes when 
 arbitrarily rhymed, without the check of regularly 
 recurring divisions. It seemed to me that this 
 object might be best accomplished by adhering 
 rigidly to the measure and limit of .the stanza, 
 yet allowing myself freedom of rhyme within that 
 limit. The ottava rima is undoubtedly better 
 adapted for the purposes of a romantic epic than 
 either the Spenserian stanza or the heroic coup 
 let ; but it needs the element of humor (as in 
 Byron s " Don Juan " ) to relieve its uniform 
 sweetness. On the other hand, the proper com 
 pactness and strength of rhythm can with difficulty 
 be preserved in a poem where all form of stanza 
 is discarded. My aim has been, as far as pos 
 sible, to combine the advantages and lessen the 
 objections of both. 
 
 I know of but one instance in which the exper 
 iment has been even partially tried, the " Obe- 
 ron " of Wieland, wherein the rhymes are wil 
 fully varied, and sometimes the measure, the 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. V 
 
 stanza almost invariably closing with an Alexan 
 drine. In the present case, I have been unable 
 to detect any prohibitory rule in the genius of 
 our language ; and the only doubt which sug 
 gested itself to my mind was that the ear, be 
 coming swiftly accustomed to the arrangement 
 of rhyme in one stanza, might expect to find it 
 reproduced in the next. I believe, however, that 
 such disappointment, if it should now and then 
 occur, will be very transitory, that even an 
 unusually delicate ear will soon adjust itself to 
 the changing order, and find that the varied 
 harmony at which I have aimed (imperfectly as 
 I may have succeeded) compensates for the 
 lack of regularity. At times, I confess, the temp 
 tation to close with an Alexandrine was very 
 great ; but it was necessary to balance the one 
 apparent license by a rigid adherence to the 
 customary form in all other respects. Hence, 
 also, I have endeavored, as frequently as possible, 
 to use but three rhymes in a stanza, in order to 
 
vi INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 strengthen my experiment with an increased ef 
 fect of melody. I have found, since the com 
 pletion of the poem, that it contains more than 
 seventy variations in the order of rhyme, not all 
 of which, of course, can be pronounced equally 
 agreeable : nor does this freedom involve less labor 
 than a single form of stanza, because the varia 
 tions must be so arranged as to relieve and sup 
 port each other. My object has been, not to 
 escape the laws which Poetry imposes, but to 
 select a form which gives greater appearance of 
 unrestrained movement, and more readily reflects 
 the varying moods of the poem. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PROEM. 
 
 PACK 
 
 To THE ARTISTS . 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 THE ARTIST 
 
 BOOK II. 
 THE WOMAN ......... 61 
 
 BOOK III. 
 THE CHILD .......... 117 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 THE PICTURE ......... 171 
 
PROEM. 
 
 TO THE ARTISTS. 
 
 i. 
 ~Y) E CAUSE no other dream my childhood knew 
 
 Than your bright Goddess sends, that earliest 
 Her face I saw, and from her bounteous breast, 
 All others dry, the earliest nurture drew; 
 And since the hope, so lovely, was not true, 
 To write my life in colors, win a place 
 Among your ranks, though humble, yet with grace 
 That might accord me brotherhood with you: 
 
 i A 
 
2 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 II. 
 
 Because the dream, thus cherished, gave my life 
 Its first faint sense of beauty, and became, 
 Even when the growing years to other strife 
 Led forth my feet, a shy, secluded flame: 
 And ye received me, when our pathways met, 
 As one long parted, but of kindred fate ; 
 And in one heaven our kindred stars are set : 
 To you, my Brethren, this be dedicate! 
 
 in. 
 
 And though some sportive nymph the channel turned, 
 And led to other fields mine infant rill, 
 The sense of fancied destination still 
 Leaps in its waves, and will not be unlearned. 
 I charge not Fate 1 with having done me wrong ; 
 Much hath she granted, though so much was spurned ; 
 But leave the keys of Color, silent long, 
 And pour my being through the stops of Song! 
 
PROEM. 3 
 
 IV. 
 
 Even as one breath the organ-pipe compels 
 
 To yield that note which through the minster swells 
 
 In chorded thunder, and the hollow lyre 
 
 Beneath its gentler touches to awake 
 
 The airy monotones that fan desire, 
 
 And thrills the fife with blood of battle, so 
 
 Our natures from one source their music take, 
 
 And side by side to one far Beauty flow! 
 
 v. 
 
 And I have measured, in fraternal pride, 
 Your reverence, your faith, your patient power 
 Of stern self-abnegation ; and have tried 
 The range between your brightest, darkest hour, 
 The path of chill neglect, and that so fair 
 With praise upspringing like a wind-sown flower: 
 But, whether thorns or amaranths ye wear, 
 Your speech is mine, your sacrifice, your prayer! 
 
4 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Permit me, therefore, ye who nearest stand, 
 Among the worthiest, and kindliest known 
 In contact of our lives, to take the hand 
 Whose grasp assures me I. am not alone; 
 For thus companioned, I shall find the tone 
 Of flowing song, and all my breath command. 
 Your names I veil from those who should not see; 
 Not from yourselves, my Friends, and not from me! 
 
 VII. 
 
 You, underneath whose brush the autumn day 
 Draws near the sunset which it never finds, 
 Whose art the smoke of Indian-Summer binds 
 Beyond the west-wind s power to breathe away: 
 Who fix the breakers in their lifted grace 
 And stretch the sea-horizon, dim and gray, 
 I 11 call you OPAL, so your tints enchase 
 The pearly atmospheres wherein they play. 
 
PROEM-. 
 
 ^ 
 
 VIII. 
 
 And you, who love the brown October field, 
 
 The lingering leaves that flutter as they cling, 
 
 And each forlorn but ever-lovely thing, 
 
 To whom elegiac Autumn hath revealed 
 
 Her sweetest dirges, BLOODSTONE : for the hue 
 
 Of sombre meadows to your palette cleaves, 
 
 And lowering skies, with sunlight breaking through, 
 
 And flecks of crimson on the scattered leaves! 
 
 IX. 
 
 You, TOPAZ, clasp the full-blown opulence 
 Of Summer: many a misty mountain-range 
 Or smoky valley, specked with warrior-tents, 
 Basks on your canvas: then, with grander change, 
 We climb to where your mountain twilight gleams 
 In spectral pomp, or nurse the easeful sense 
 Which through your Golden Day forever dreams 
 By lakes, and sunny hills, and falling streams. 
 
6 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 X. 
 
 You banish color from your cheerful cell, 
 
 O PAROS! but a stern imperial form 
 
 Stands in the marble moonlight where you dwell, 
 
 A Poet s head, with grand Ionian beard, 
 
 And Phidian dreams, that shine against the storm 
 
 Of toilful life, the white robe o er them cast 
 
 Of breathless Beauty : yours the art, endeared 
 
 To men and gods, first born, enduring last. 
 
 XI. 
 
 You, too, whom how to name I may not guess, 
 
 Except the jacinth and the ruby, blent, 
 
 The native warmth of life might represent, 
 
 Which, drawn from barns and homesteads, you express, 
 
 Or vintage revels, round the maple-tree; 
 
 Or when the dusky race you quaintly dress 
 
 In art that gives them finer liberty, 
 
 Made by your pencil, ere by battle, free! 
 
PROEM. 
 
 * 
 
 XII. 
 
 Where er my feet have strayed, whatever shore 
 I visit, there your venturous footprints cling. 
 From Chimborazo unto Labrador 
 One sweeps the Continent with eagle wing, 
 To dip his brush in tropic noon, or fires 
 Of Arctic night: one sets his seal upon 
 Far Colorado s cleft, colossal spires, 
 And lone, snow-kindled cones of Oregon. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Another "through the mystic moonlight floats 
 That silvers Venice; and another sees 
 The blazoned galleys and the gilded boats 
 Bring home her Doges: Andalusian leas, 
 Gray olive-slopes, and mountains sun-embrowned 
 Entice another, and from ruder ground 
 Of old Westphalian homes another brings 
 Enchanted memories of the meanest things. 
 
THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 To each and all, the hand of fellowship ! 
 A poet s homage (should that title fall 
 From other lips than mine) to each and all ! 
 For, whether this pale star of Song shall dip 
 To swift forgetfulness, or burn beside 
 Accepted lamps of Art s high festival, 
 Its flame was kindled at our shrines allied, 
 In double faith, and from a twofold call ! 
 
THE 
 
 PICTURE OF ST. JOHN 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 1* 
 
THE 
 
 PICTURE OF ST. JOHN 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 THE ARTIST 
 
 S~* OMPLETE 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. 
 
12 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 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. 
 
 in. 
 
 For, truly, he that reverently holds 
 The wonder of his being, bowed in awe 
 Of what divine or dread himself infolds, 
 And boundless liberty and sternest law 
 Commingled, he alone is counted worth 
 The veil from Life s dim countenance to draw, 
 To face the solemn facts of Death and Birth, 
 And break his path across the wilds of Earth ! 
 
THE ARTIST. 13 
 
 IV. 
 
 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, 
 Eepeat not those that ever were before 
 Or ever shall be: mine are Day and Night. 
 
 v. 
 
 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. 
 
14 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 VI. 
 
 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. 
 
 VII. 
 
 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. 
 
THE ARTIST. 15 
 
 VIII. 
 
 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. 
 
 IX. 
 
 fAnd, 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. 
 
16 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 X. 
 
 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. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Ah, formless need, uncomprehended pain 
 
 Of childhood ! "Wings that beat and bleed in vain, 
 
 Not knowing yet the highways of the air! 
 
 What laggard years, before my life could guess 
 
 How to expend its burning eagerness 
 
 For voice or deed! The sense that fed my prayer 
 
 Grew into knowledge, as it outward sent 
 
 Its force, and made my hand its instrument. 
 
THE ARTIST. J7 
 
 XII. 
 
 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. 
 
 xm. 
 
 The path once found, my flexile nature took 
 Such aid and guidance as around me lay, 
 And hurrying onward, as an upland brook 
 That shifts and whirls by grassy cape and bay, 
 Once gained an outlet to the falling dells, 
 Leaps into flashing purpose, leapt away 
 My heart through gracious dreams and lovely spells, 
 Its goal detected, bright with distant day ! 
 
18 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 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 .he unworn wreaths they bore ; 
 So gracious Fortune showed, so fair the hues 
 Wherewith she paints her cloud-built avenues ! 
 
 xv. 
 
 How rosed with morn, how angel-innocent, 
 Thus looking back, I see my lightsome youth ! 
 Each thought a wondrous bounty Heaven had lent, 
 And each illusion was a radiant truth ! 
 Each sorrow dead bequeathed a young desire, 
 Each hovering doubt or cloud of discontent 
 So interfused with Faith s pervading fire, 
 That to achieve seemed light as to aspire ! 
 
THE ARTIST. 19 
 
 XVI. 
 
 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. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 And I was free ; though sad, cast forth adrift, 
 Not unconsoled : the art my soul embraced 
 With undivided love had power to lift 
 The loneliness of grief. Through many a rift 
 New lights of hope the sudden sorrow chased, 
 And from my own rekindled dreams I drew 
 Courage to claim and patience to pursue 
 Success, whose brimming cup I burned to taste ! 
 
20 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 XIX. 
 
 O, 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! 
 
THE ARTIST. 21 
 
 XX. 
 
 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 ! " 
 
 XXI. 
 
 And morning did unfold the jutting capes 
 Of chestnut-wooded hills, that held embayed 
 Warm coves of fruit, the pine s ^Eolian 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 ! 
 
22 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 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. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 f 
 
 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 ! 
 
THE ARTIST. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 And when the third rich day declined his lids, 
 I floated where the emerald waters fold 
 Gein-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! 
 
 XXV. 
 
 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 rich 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 ! 
 
24 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 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! 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 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! 
 
THE ARTIST. 25 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 There found I rest, and there the world I sought, 
 
 Eternal beauty and eternal joy, 
 
 The flower of life, the bright result of thought, 
 
 The perfect Art, which nothing can destroy ; 
 
 For, once embodied, its creation caught 
 
 The right to be : and I, with pulses warm, 
 
 Took to my brain each grand and lovely form, 
 
 To build myself from what the Masters wrought. 
 
26 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 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! 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 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 ! 
 
THE ARTIST. 27 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 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? 
 
28 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 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. 
 
THE ARTIST. 29 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 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! 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 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! 
 
30 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 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 quasstor s blade ! 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 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 ! 
 
THE ARTIST. 31 
 
 XL. 
 
 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: 
 
 XL. 
 
 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 : 
 
32 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 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 ! 
 
THE ARTIST. 33 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 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! 
 
 XLV. 
 
 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. 
 
 2* C 
 
34 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XL VI. 
 
 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. 
 
 XL VII. 
 
 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. 
 
THE ARTIST. 35 
 
 XL VIII. 
 
 Dried was the dew and fled the golden cloud ! 
 O erMhe bare earth the sharp, unsparing sun 
 Shone, disenchanting, chasing every one 
 The sweet illusions from their secret shroud 
 Of silence and of shadow : and I drew 
 The simple forms which wooed not, but compelled, 
 Because my drugged ambition, roused anew, 
 Mine idle powers unto its service held. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 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 assdi" sang. 
 
36 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 L. 
 
 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. 
 
 LI. 
 
 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. 
 
THE ARTIST. 37 
 
 LIT. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 Lin. 
 
 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: 
 
38 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 LV. 
 
 I stood and gazed; and silvery bells below 
 Throbbed, like the beating pulses of the scene, 
 From distant domes that burned athwart the screen 
 Of liquid color. Songs of self-born flow, 
 Like air or water, mingled near and far, 
 Half heard: I felt around my forehead blow 
 The breath of hopes that form nor language know, 
 Soft murmurs, voices from another star! 
 
THE ARTIST. 39 
 
 LVI. 
 
 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! 
 
 LVII. 
 
 Ah, lovely Florence ! Never city wore 
 So shining robes as I on thee bestowed: 
 For all the rapture of my being flowed 
 Around thy beauty, filling, flooding o er 
 The banks of Arno and the circling hills 
 With light no wind of sunset ever spills 
 From out its saffron seas! Once, and no more, 
 Life s voyage touches the enchanted shore. 
 
 or Tin 
 
 WJTIRSITT! 
 
40 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 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! 
 
 LIX. 
 
 Two maids, upon a terrace that o erhung 
 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. 
 
THE ARTIST. 41 
 
 LX. 
 
 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. 
 
 LXT. 
 
 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. 
 
42 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 And I went forward, consecrated, blest, 
 And garlanded like some returning Faun 
 From Pan s green revels in the woodland 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! 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 Such moments come to all whom Art elects 
 To serve her, Poet, Painter, 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! 
 
THE ARTIST. 43 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 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. 
 
 LXV. 
 
 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 
 
 ^recognition, patient to abide 
 
 Neglect that stung, temptations that allured, 
 
 Supremely proud and in itself secured! 
 
44 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 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 : 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 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. 
 
THE ARTIST. 45 
 
 LXYIH. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 So I was hailed : and something fawn-like, shy, 
 Caught from the loneliness of mountain-glens, 
 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. 
 
46 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 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. 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 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 ! 
 
THE ARTIST. 47 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 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 moes 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? 
 
48 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 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. 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 They unto me were gods : for, though I felt 
 That nobler twas, 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. 
 
THE ARTIST. 49 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 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. 
 
 LXXVH, 
 
 My studio was the street, the market-place: 
 
 I snared 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. 
 
 3 D 
 
50 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 Lxxvin. 
 
 Erelong, my canvas glowed with riper tints: 
 The bloom of life was there, if immature 
 The early fruitage. Nature ever prints 
 Her own bright seal on that which we allure 
 From her unguarded keeping, dropping hints 
 Whereby we track her labyrinthine ways 
 Back to some splendid secret, that repays 
 Life sacrificed with life that shall endure. 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 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 jasmine-bell, 
 Inebriate with their fairy hydromel. 
 
THE ARTIST. 51 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 Where was my lost Arinida? She had grown 
 A phantom shape, a star of dreams, alone ; 
 And I no longer dared to touch the 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. 
 
 LXXXI. 
 
 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. 
 
2 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 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. 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 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. 
 
THE ARTIST. 53 
 
 L XXXIV. 
 
 Naught else, save, nestling near the Virgin s feet, 
 A single lamb that wandered from its flock, 
 And one white dove, upon a splintered 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. 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 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. 
 
54 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 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. 
 
 LXXXVII. 
 
 " 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. 
 
THE ARTIST. 55 
 
 L XXX VIII. 
 
 One day, a man of haughty port drew nigh, 
 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. 
 
 LXXXIX. 
 
 " Signer 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: 
 
56 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XC. 
 
 " 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." 
 
 xci. 
 
 " 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. 
 
THE ARTIST. 57 
 
 XCII. 
 
 " She lost, her picture in the lonely hall 
 Shall speak, from silent lips, her sweet ( good-night ! 
 And soothe my childless fancy. I 11 invite 
 This painter to the work : his brush has all 
 The graces of a hand which takes delight 
 In noble forms, and thus may best recall, 
 Though nameless he, what Palma s brush divine 
 Found in the beauteous mothers of her line ! " 
 
 XCIII. 
 
 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 unsought ! 
 3* 
 
58 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XCIV. 
 
 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. 
 
 xcv. 
 
 Next day the Marquis came. With antique 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. 
 
THE ARTIST. 59 
 
 XCVI. 
 
 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. 
 
 XCVII. 
 
 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 ! 
 
60 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XCVIII. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 xcix. 
 
 The blood that gathered, stifling, at my heart, 
 Surged back again, and burned on cheek and brow. 
 " Your model ! " smiled the Marquis ; " you 11 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 11 paint it, as she is, I want no change " : 
 Then left, with wave of hand and stately bow. 
 
THE ARTIST. 61 
 
 0. 
 
 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. 
 
 01. 
 
 " 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 flowers will fade, 
 But by your hand am I forever crowned ! " 
 
THE 
 
 PICTURE OF ST. JOHN 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 THE WOMAN. 
 
 S~\ GIVE not Beauty to an artist s eye 
 
 And deem his heart, untroubled, can withstand 
 Her necromancy, changing earth and sky 
 To one wide net wherein her captives lie ! 
 Nor, since his mind the measure takes, his hand 
 Essays the semblance of each hue and line, 
 That cold his pulses beat, as if he scanned 
 Her marble death and not her life divine ! 
 
66 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 II. 
 X 
 
 How could I view the sombre-shining hair 
 
 Without the tingling, passionate wish to feel 
 Its silken smoothness? How the golden-pale 
 Pure oval of the face, the forehead fair, 
 The light of eyes whose dusky depths conceal 
 Love s yet unkindled torch, and wear the mail 
 Of cruel Art, that bade me mimic bliss 
 And only paint the mouth I burned to kiss ? 
 
 in. 
 
 Those perfect lips, their virgin dew undrained, 
 Smiled, as the parted lips of Morning smile, 
 Brightening the world; or cast, when sadness reigned, 
 A shade like twilight o er a lonely isle 
 That sleeps afar on some enchanted wave: 
 And as an unknown blossom might enslave 
 A wandering bee, and chain his wings awhile, 
 They held my heart, and all its hope, enchained. 
 
THE WOMAN. 67 
 
 IV. 
 
 So near, the airy wave her voice set free 
 Smote warm against my cheek ! So near, I heard 
 The folds that hid her bosom, as they stirred 
 Above the heart-beat measuring now, for me, 
 Life s only music ! Ah, so near, and yet 
 Between us rose a wall I could not see, 
 To dash me back, before the wings that fret 
 For love s release, a crystal barrier set ! 
 
 v. 
 
 But o er mute lips the yearning eye may speak 
 In unforbidden glances, each a prayer, 
 Until their silent-woven web shall snare 
 The innocent fancy : so, to Clelia s cheek, 
 Long ere she dreamed, the unsuspected rose 
 Branched from her heart and spread its petals there, 
 Faint, tender, shadowy, as the flower that grows 
 Beneath the wildwood s roof in sunless air. 
 
68 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 VI. 
 
 I kissed, in thought, each clear, delicious tint 
 That lured my mocking hand : my passion flung 
 Its lurking sweetness over every print 
 Of the soft brush that to her beauty clung, 
 And fondled while it toiled, and day by day 
 The canvas brightened with her brightening face : 
 The artist gloried in the picture s grace, 
 But, ah ! the lover s chances lapsed away. 
 
 VII. 
 
 And now, the last ! The grapes already wore 
 
 Victorious purple, ere their trodden death ; 
 
 The olives darkened through their branches hoar, 
 
 And from below the tuberose s breath 
 
 Died round the casement, from the spicy shore 
 
 Of ripened summer, passionate as the sigh 
 
 I stifled : and my heart said, " speak or die ! 
 
 The moment s fate stands fixed forevermore." 
 
THE WOMAN. 69 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The naked glare of breezeless afternoon 
 Dazzled without : the garden swooned in heat. 
 The old duenna drooped her head, and soon 
 Behind the curtain slumbered in her seat. 
 Within my breast the crowded, panting beat 
 Disturbed my hand : the pencil fell : I turned, 
 And with imploring eyes and tears that burned 
 Sank in despairing silence at her feet. 
 
 IX. 
 
 I did not dare look up, but knelt, as waits 
 A foiled tyrannicide the headsman s blow : 
 At first a frightened hush, the stealthy, slow, 
 Soft rustle of her dress, a step like Fate s 
 To crown or smite : but now descended, where 
 Her garland fell, her hand upon my hair, 
 And, light as floating leaf of orchard-snow 
 Loosed by the pulse of Spring, it trembled there. 
 
70 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 X. 
 
 Then I looked up, 0, grace of God ! to feel 
 Her answering tears like dew upon my brow ; 
 To touch and kiss her blessing hand ; to seal 
 Without a word the one eternal vow 
 Of man and woman, when their lives unite 
 Thenceforth forever, soul and body shared, 
 Like those the Grecian goddess, pitying, paired 
 To form the young, divine Hermaphrodite. 
 
 XI. 
 
 I breathed "you do not love Colonna?" "No," 
 She whispered, " aid me, I am yours to save ! " 
 " I yours to help, your lover and your slave, 
 My soul, my blood is yours," I murmured low. 
 The old duenna stirred : " when ? where ? one hour 
 For your commands ! " As hurriedly she gave 
 Reply: "The garden, yonder darkest bower, 
 When midnight tolls from Santa Croce s tower ! " 
 
THE WOMAN. 71 
 
 XII. 
 
 Ere the immortal light had time to fade 
 In cither s eyes, the old Marchese came. 
 I veiled, in toil, the flush that still betrayed, 
 And Clelia, strong to hide her maiden shame, 
 The motion of her father s hand obeyed 
 And left us. Gravely he my work surveyed: 
 "Tis done, I think, tis she, indeed," he said: 
 " T was time," he muttered, as he turned his head. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 I bowed in silence, took his offered gold, 
 
 And down the marble stairs, through doors that cried, 
 
 On scornful hinges, of their owner s pride, 
 
 Passed on my way : my happy heart did fold 
 
 Pandolfo s treasure in its secret hold, 
 
 And every bell that chimed the feeble day 
 
 Down to its crimson burial, seemed to say : 
 
 "Not yet, not yet, for Love our tongues have tolled!" 
 
72 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 sluggish bells, that lengthened so the hours, 
 With sun and stars conspiring to prolong 
 Day, sunset, twilight, silent in your towers 
 While my heart ached to hear your drowsy song 
 Proclaim the bliss it could not yet believe ! 
 
 " Arise, O moon, and light the expectant bowers," 
 
 1 cried : " ye stars, your branching garlands weave, 
 Till midnight s glory dims the rose of eve ! " 
 
 XV. 
 
 More slowly rolled the silver disk above 
 The hiding hills, than ever moon came up : 
 The sky s begemmed and sapphire-tinted cup 
 Spilled o er its dew, and Heaven in nuptial love 
 Stretched forth his mystic arms, and couched beside 
 The yearning Earth, his dusky-featured bride : 
 The pulses of the Night began to move, 
 And Life s eternal secret ruled the tide. 
 
THE WOMAN. 73 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Along the shadow of the garden-walls 
 
 I crept: the streets were still, or only beat 
 
 To wavering echoes by unsteady feet 
 
 Of wine-flushed revellers from banquet halls. 
 
 They saw me not : the yielding door I gained, 
 
 And glided down a darksome alley, sweet 
 
 With slumbering roses, to the shy retreat 
 
 Of bashful bliss and yearning unprofaned. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 I stood in soft, enchanted gloom: around 
 The guarding branches bent, and drops of light 
 That shone like glow-worms on the mossy ground 
 Leaked through the roof: the fountain s babbling sound, 
 Near and incessant, seemed a friendly sprite, 
 To hide Love s whispers with melodious din. 
 I cleft the leaves and softly stole within, 
 Endymion-like, to wait my Queen of Night. 
 4 
 
74 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The amorous odors of the moveless air, 
 Jasmine and tuberose and gillyflower, 
 Carnation, heliotrope, and purpling shower 
 Of Persian roses, kissed my senses there 
 To keenest passion, clad my limbs with power 
 Like some young god s, when at the banquet first 
 He drinks fresh deity with eager thirst, 
 And midnight rang from Santa Croce s tower ! 
 
 XIX. 
 
 She came ! a stealthy, startled, milk-white fawn, 
 Thridding the tangled bloom : a balmy wave 
 Foreran her coming, and the blushful dawn 
 Of Love its color to the moonlight gave, 
 And Night grew splendid. In a trance divine, 
 Hand locked in hand, with kissing pulse, we clung, 
 Then heart to heart; and all her being flung 
 Its sweetness to the lips, and mixed with mine. 
 
THE WOMAN. 75 
 
 XX. 
 
 Immortal Hour, whose starry torch did guide 
 
 Eternal Love to his embalmed nest 
 
 In virgin bosoms, Hour, supremely blest 
 
 Beyond thy sisters, lift thy brow in pride, 
 
 And say to her whose muffled beams invest 
 
 The bed where Strength lies down at Beauty s side, 
 
 " Before my holier lamp thy forehead hide : 
 
 Give up thy crown : the joy I bring is best ! " 
 
 XXI. 
 
 As parted souls might meet in Heaven, we met, 
 With wonder seated by the side of bliss, 
 And rapture interblended with regret, 
 As each beholds in each the beauty set 
 Which, humble-hearted, in themselves they miss; 
 And Love, intent to recognize his claim, 
 Made pure as dew the sweet, infectious kiss, 
 And tamed to tenderness his pulse of flame. 
 
76 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 " saved, not lost, Madonna, bless thy child ! " 
 She murmured then ; and I as fondly, " Death 
 Come now, and close my over-happy breath 
 On sacred lips, that shall not be defiled 
 By grosser kisses ! " Fail me not," she said, 
 And clung the closer, " God is overhead, 
 And hears you." "Yea," I whispered wild, 
 "And may His thunder strike the false one dead!" 
 
 xxm. 
 
 No thought had she of lineage or of place : 
 Love washed the colors from her blazoned shield 
 To make a mirror for her lover s face, 
 Unto patrician ignorance revealed 
 The bliss to give, the ecstasy to yield, 
 And now, descended from her stately dream, 
 She trod the happy level of her race, 
 In perfect, sweet surrender, faith supreme. 
 
THE WOMAN. 77 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 With cautious feet, in dewy sandals shod, 
 And sidelong look, the perfumed Hours went by ; 
 Until the azure darkness of the sky 
 Withered aloft, and shameless Morning trod 
 Her clashing bells. Our paradise was past, 
 And yet to part was bitterer than to die. 
 We rose : we turned : we held each other fast, 
 Each kiss the fonder as it seemed the last. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 happy Earth ! To Love s triumphant heart 
 
 Thou still art convoyed by the singing stars 
 
 That hailed thy birth: Heaven s beauteous counterpart, 
 
 No shadow dims thee, no convulsion mars 
 
 Thy fair green bosom: on thy forehead shine 
 
 The golden lilies of the bridegroom Day, 
 
 Thy hoary forests take the bloom of May, 
 
 Thy seas the sparkle of the autumn s wine ! 
 
78 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Serenely beautiful, the brightening morn 
 Led on the march of mine enchanted round 
 Of days, wherein the world was freshly born, 
 And men with primal purity recrowned : 
 So deep my drunkenness of heart and brain, 
 That Art, o ershadowed, sat as if forlorn 
 In Love s excess of glory, and in vain 
 Essayed my old allegiance to regain. 
 
 xxm. 
 
 She to the regions o er our lives unfurled 
 Is turned : from that which never is, she draws 
 Her best achievements and her finest laws, 
 And more enriches than she owes, the world, 
 Whence, leading Life, she rules ; till Life, in turn, 
 Feels in its veins the warmer ether burn, 
 Asserts itself, and bids its service pause, 
 To be the beauty it was vowed to earn! 
 
THE WOMAN. 79 
 
 XXVIII. 
 And my transfigured heart no baby-love, 
 
 With dimpled face, had taken to its nest, 
 
 
 
 But that Titanic, pre-Olympian guest, 
 
 The elder god, who bears his slaves above 
 
 The fret of Time, the frowns of Circumstance ; 
 
 And, twin with Will, engendered in my breast 
 
 A certain vision of a life in rest, 
 
 And love secured against the shocks of chance. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 It was enough to feel his potent arm 
 Lift me aloft, like giant Christopher, 
 Above the flood. Could he the dragon charm 
 Whose fanged and gilded strength still guarded her ? 
 The crumbling pride of twice three hundred years, 
 Trembling in dotage at the ghost of harm, 
 Could he subdue ? Ah, wherefore summon fears 
 To vex the faith that never reappears! 
 
80 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 
 XXX. 
 
 But she the more, whose swift-approaching fate 
 
 Shamed the exulting bliss that made me free, 
 
 And clouded hers, thereon did meditate. 
 
 When next she met me at the garden-gate, 
 
 Its chilling shadow fell upon me. " See ! " 
 
 She said, and dangled in the balmy dark 
 
 (The moon was down) a chain of jewelry, 
 
 That, snake-like, burned with many a diamond spark. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 " His bridal gift ! " she whispered : " he will come, 
 Erelong, to claim me. Speech, and tears, and prayer, 
 Are vain my father s will to overbear, 
 And better were it, had my lips been dumb. 
 Incredulous, he heard with wondering stare 
 My pleading : < keep me, father, at your side ! 
 I will not be that wanton prince s bride, 
 Unwed, your lonely palace let me share ! 
 
THE WOMAN. 81 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 " Much more I said, not daring to reveal 
 
 Our secret ; but, alas ! I spoke in vain. 
 
 He coldly smiled and raised me : do not kneel, 
 
 Tis useless: here s a pretty, childish rain 
 
 For nothing, but the sun will shine anon. 
 
 What ails the girl ? the compact shall remain. 
 
 Pandolfo s name is not so newly won, 
 
 That we can smutch it and not feel the stain. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 " He spoke my doom ; but death were sweeter now, 
 
 Since, my best-beloved, life alone 
 
 Is where your eyes, your lips, can meet my own, 
 
 And Heaven commands, that registered your vow, 
 
 To save me, and fulfil it!" Then, around 
 
 My neck her white, imploring arms were thrown; 
 
 Her heart beat in mine ears with plaintive sound, 
 
 So close and piteously she held me bound. 
 
 4* 
 
82 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Ah me! twas needless further to rehearse 
 The old romance, that life has ne er belied, 
 The old offence which Love repeats to pride, 
 The strife, the supplication, and the curse 
 Hung like a thunder-cloud above the dawn, 
 To threat the day : it better seemed, to fly 
 Beyond the circle of that sullen sky, 
 And storms let idly loose when we were gone. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 " Darling," I answered, staking all my fate 
 On the sole chance within my beggared hands, - 
 " Darling, the wealth of love is my estate, 
 Save one poor home, that in a valley stands, 
 Cool, dark, and lonesome, far beyond the line 
 Of wintry peaks that guard the summer lands ; 
 But shelter safe, though paler suns may shine, 
 And Paradise, when once tis yours and mine! 
 
THE WOMAN. 83 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 " See ! I am all I give : I cannot ask 
 That you should leave the laurel and the rose, 
 And halls of yellowing marble, meant to bask 
 In endless sun, and airs of old repose 
 That fan the beauteous ages, elsewhere lost, 
 To see the world put on its deathly mask 
 Of low, gray sky and ever-deepening snows, 
 And dip its bowers in darkness and in frost." 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 " Nay, let " (she cried) " his mellow marbles shine 
 In Roman noons, his fountains flap the airs, 
 And rank and splendor crowd his gilded stairs, 
 Wait in his halls, or drink his banquet-wine, 
 So ne er the hateful pomp I spurn be mine ; 
 But take me, love ! for ah, the father, too, 
 Who for his early claims my later cares, 
 Is leagued with him, and I am left to you ! " 
 
84 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 " So, then, shall Summer cross the Alpine chain 
 And scare the autumn crocus from the meads ; 
 And the wan naiads, mid their brittle reeds, 
 Feel the chill wave its languid pulse regain, 
 Wooing the azure brook-flowers into bloom 
 To greet your coming ; and the golden rain 
 Of beechen forests shall your path illume, 
 Till the Year s bonfire burn away its gloom ! " 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Thus, at her words, my sudden rapture threw 
 
 Its glory on the scene so bleak before, 
 
 As to the nightly mariner a shore 
 
 That out of hollow darkness slowly grew, 
 
 Seeming huge cliffs that menaced with the roar 
 
 Of hungry surf, when Morning lifts her torch 
 
 Flashes at once to gardens dim with dew, 
 
 And homes and temples fair with pillared porch. 
 
THE WOMAN. 85 
 
 XL. 
 
 We only felt, that Love with his free hand 
 Should clasp his own : whatever lay beyond 
 Of usage broken, gulfs of fate o erspanned 
 By hearts all-daring to assert their bond, 
 Of laws contemned, or foresight cast aside, 
 He was our Providence by sea or land 
 Thenceforth, our sole protector, stay, and guide 
 In the new life and in the world untried. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 " Away ! " was his command, and we obeyed ; 
 And Chance assisted, ere three times the sun 
 Looked o er the planet s verge, that swiftly spun 
 To bring the hour, so perilously delayed 
 My fortune with Colonna s now was weighed; 
 But that brief time of love s last liberty 
 Pandolfo called to Rome, ere aught betrayed 
 His daughter s secret turned the scale to me. 
 
86 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XL II. 
 
 My mules were waiting by the city gate, 
 With Gianni, quick to lead a lover s fate 
 Along the bridle-paths of Apennine, 
 A gallant contadino, whom I knew 
 From crown to sole, each joint and clear-drawn line 
 Of plaited muscle, healthy, firm, and true; 
 And midnight struck, as from the garden came 
 She who forsook for me her home and name. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 With them she laid aside her silken shell 
 And jewel-sparks, and chains of moony pearl, 
 Bright, babbling toys, that of her rank might tell, 
 And wore, to cheat the drowsy sentinel, 
 The scarlet bodice of a peasant-girl, 
 Her wealth the golden dagger in her hair: 
 The haughty vestures from her beauty fell, 
 Leaving her woman, simply pure and fair. 
 
THE WOMAN. 87 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 The gate was passed: before us, through the night, 
 We traced the dusky road, and far away, 
 Where ceased the stars, we knew the mountains lay. 
 There must we climb before their shoulders, white 
 With autumn rime, should redden to the day ; 
 But now a line of faintly-scattered light 
 Plays o er the dust, and the old olives calls 
 To ghostly life above the orchard-walls. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 A little chapel, built by pious hands, 
 That foot-sore pilgrims from the blistering soil 
 May turn, or laborers from summer toil 
 To rest that breathes of God, it open stands ; 
 And there her shrine with daily flowers is drest, 
 Her lamp is nightly trimmed and fed with oil, 
 The Mater Dolorosa, in whose breast, 
 Bleeding, the seven swords of woe are pressed. 
 
88 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XL VI. 
 
 " Stay ! " whispered Clelia, as the narrow vault 
 Yawned with its faded frescoes, and the lamp 
 Revealed, untouched by rust or blurred with damp, 
 The Virgin s face : it beckoned us to halt 
 And lay our love before her feet divine, 
 A priestless sacrament, so, kneeling there 
 In self-bestowed espousal, Clelia s prayer 
 Spake to the Mother s heart her trust in mine. 
 
 XL VII. 
 
 "O Sorrowing Mother! Heaven s exalted Queen! 
 Star of the Sea ! Lily among the Thorns ! 
 Clothed with the sun, while round Thy feet serene 
 The crescent planet curves her silver horns, 
 Be Thou my star to still this trembling sea 
 Within my bosom, let the love that mourns 
 One with the love that here rejoices, be, 
 Soothed in Thy peace, acceptable to Thee ! 
 
THE WOMAN. 89 
 
 XL VIII. 
 
 "Thou who dost hide the maiden s virgin fear 
 In Thine enclosed garden, Fountain sealed 
 Of Woman s holiest secrets, bend Thine ear 
 To these weak words of one whose heart must yield 
 This temple of the body Thou didst wear 
 To love, and by Thy pity, oft revealed, 
 Pure Priestess, hearken to Thy daughter s prayer, 
 And bless the bond, of other blessing bare ! 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 " Mother of Wisdom, in whose heart are thrust 
 The seven swords of Sorrow, in whose pain 
 Thy chaste Divinity draws near again 
 To maids and mothers, crying from the dust, 
 Who ne er forgettest any human woe, 
 Once doubly Thine, Thy grace and comfort show, 
 And perfect make, O Star above the Sea, 
 These nuptial pledges, only heard by Thee ! 
 
90 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 L. 
 
 " Incline Thy countenance from that clear throne 
 
 Beside Thy Son, for Thou didst ne er deny 
 
 i 
 Compassion unto love, and I have known 
 
 No mother s tenderness save Thine alone : 
 Behold! I lift my face to meet, Thy child, 
 The chaste inquiry of Thy gentle eye : 
 O Mother kind, O Virgin Undefiled, 
 Pardon, accept, and bless, and sanctify ! " 
 
 LI. 
 
 Then Clelia s hand entrusted she to mine, 
 Who knelt beside her, and the vow she spake, 
 Weeping: "I take him, Mother, at Thy shrine. 
 Home, country, father, leave I for his sake, 
 Give my pure name, my maiden honor break 
 For him, my spouse ! " And I : " I give my life, 
 Chaste, faithful to the end, to her, my wife, 
 Whom here, Mother, at Thy hands I take ! " 
 
THE WOMAN. 91 
 
 LII. 
 Thus, in the lack of Earth s ordaining rite, 
 
 Did our own selves our union consecrate ; 
 
 
 But God was listening from the hollow Night. 
 
 Beyond the stars we felt His smile create 
 Dawn in the doubtful twilight of our fate : 
 Peace touched our hearts and sacredest content : 
 The veil was lifted from our perfect light 
 Of nuptial love, pure-burning, reverent. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 For Eden s lovely pastoral repeats 
 Its music, when, beneath the sky of youth 
 The full-formed man the answering woman meets, 
 And sex in sex, as heart in heart, the truth 
 Breaks in eternal beauty, fresh as when 
 Its primal rapture filled the green retreats 
 Of the unpeopled world some sacred glen, 
 Where the first woman blessed the first of men ! 
 
92 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LIV. 
 The Sorrowing Mother gazed. So pure the kiss 
 
 I gave, Her own divinest lips had ta en 
 
 & 
 
 From mine no trace of sense-reflected stain ; 
 
 But Gianni called us from the dream of bliss. 
 
 " Haste, Signor, haste ! " he cried : " the Bear drops low ; 
 
 Soon will the cocks in all the gardens crow 
 
 The morning watch: day comes, and night again, 
 
 But come to part, not mate, unless you go ! " 
 
 LV. 
 
 Then silent, side by side, we forward fled 
 Through the chill airs of night : each falling hoof 
 Beat like a flail beneath the thresher s roof, 
 In quick, unvarying time: and rosy-red 
 Crept o er the gray, as nimbly Gianni led 
 Our devious flight along the barren steeps, 
 Till, far beyond the sinking, misty deeps, 
 The sun forsook his Adriatic bed. 
 
THE WOMAN. 93 
 
 LVI. 
 
 There is a village perched, as you emerge 
 From the Santerno s long and winding vale 
 Towards Imolk, upon the cliffy verge 
 Of the last northern prop of Apennine, 
 Old, yellow houses, hinting many a tale 
 Of ducal days and Este s tragic line, 
 And over all uplifted, orange-pale 
 Against the blue, a belfry slim and fine. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 With weary climbing of the rocky stair 
 Thither we came, and in a hostel rude 
 Sat down, outworn, to breathe securer air, 
 Our guide dismissed, nor eyes that might intrude, 
 Among the simple inmates of the place. 
 The brightest stars of heaven watched o er us there 
 In sweet conjunction, every dread to chase, 
 To close the Past, and make the Future fair. 
 
94 THE PICTUEE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 Ah, had we dared to linger in that nest, 
 To watch, from under overhanging eaves, 
 The loaded vines, the poplars twinkling leaves, 
 Afar, the breadth of the Romagna s breast 
 And Massa s, Lugo s towers, the little stir 
 Of innocent life, caress and be caressed, 
 Rank, Art, and Fame among the things that were, 
 And all her bliss in me, as mine in her ! 
 
 LIX. 
 
 But Florence was too near: my purpose held 
 To bear and hide our happiness afar 
 In the dark mountains, lonely, greenest-dell ed ; 
 And still, each night, the never-setting star 
 "We followed took in heaven a loftier stand, 
 Sparkled on other rivers, other towns, 
 Glinting from icy horns and snowy crowns 
 Until we trod the green Bavarian land ! 
 
THE WOMAN. 95 
 
 LX. 
 
 And evermore, behind us on the road, 
 Pursuit, a phantom, drove. If we delayed, 
 Some coward pulse our meeting bosoms frayed ; 
 Our tale the breezes blew, the sunshine glowed; 
 The stars our secret ecstasies betrayed : 
 Drunk with our passion s vintage, we must fill 
 The cup too full, and tremble lest it spill, 
 Obeying, thus, the law we would evade. 
 
 LXI. 
 
 Now, from that finer ether sinking down 
 Into the humble, universal air, 
 The images of many a human care 
 That, wren-like, build beneath the thatch of love, 
 Came round us. O er the levels, brown 
 With autumn stubble, the departing dove 
 Cooed her farewell to summer: rainy-cold 
 Through rocky gates the yellow Danube rolled. 
 
96 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 Grim were the mountains, with their dripping pines 
 Planted in sodden moss, and swiftly o er 
 Their crests the clouds their flying fleeces tore : 
 The herd-boy, from his lair of furze and vines 
 Peered out, beside his dogs ; and forms uncouth, 
 The axemen, from the steeps descending, wore 
 The strength of manhood, but its grace no more, 
 The lust, without the loveliness, of youth ! 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 The swollen streams careered beside us, hoarse 
 As warning prophets in an evil age, 
 And through the stormy fastnesses our course, 
 Blown, buffeted with elemental rage, 
 Fell, with the falling night, to that lone vale 
 I pictured, with its meads of crocus-bloom, 
 Ah me, engulfed and lost in drowning gloom, 
 The helpless sport and shipwreck of the gale ! 
 
THE WOMAN. 97 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 Where now the bright autumnal bonfires ? Where 
 
 The gold of beechen woods, the prodigal 
 
 And dazzling waste of color in its fall ? 
 
 The brook-flowers, bluer than the morning-air? 
 
 " My pomp of welcome mocked you, love ! " I sighed : 
 
 "The sign was false, the flattering dream denied: 
 
 Unkind is Nature, yet all skies are fair 
 
 To trusting hearts, when once their truth is tried! 
 
 LXV. 
 
 But Clelia shuddered, clinging to my heart 
 When the low roof received us, and the sound 
 Of threshing branches boomed and whistled round 
 Our cot, that stood a little way apart 
 Against the forest, from the village strayed, 
 Where cunning workmen in their prisons bound 
 The roaring Fiend of Fire, and forced his aid 
 To mould the crystal wonders of their trade. 
 
98 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 Poor was our home, and when the rainy sky 
 Brought forth a child of Night, an Ethiop day, 
 And still the turbid torrents thundered by, 
 From the drear landscape she would turn away, 
 Her thoughts, perchance, where gilded Florence lay, 
 To hide a tear, or crush a rising sigh, 
 Then sing the sweet Italian songs, where run 
 Twin rills of words and music into one. 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 I, too, beneath the low-hung rafters, saw 
 In dusk that filtered through the narrow panes, 
 My palette spread with colors dull and raw, 
 Once ripe and juicy-fresh as blossom-stains. 
 The dim, beclouded season never brought 
 The light that flatters ; but its mists and rains 
 Like eating rust upon my canvas wrought, 
 And turned to substance cold the tinted thought. 
 
THE WOMAN. 99 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 The pure Arcadian dream inspired me yet, 
 Spared to the world in matchless forms antique, 
 And in those radiant pictures, where are met 
 The soul of Christian Art, the brain of Greek, 
 Wedded in life which perfect color warms, 
 And power upholds, and tender grace informs; 
 Nor could my heart its young resolve forget 
 To carve my name upon that haughty peak. 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 So here I missed those living wells, whence drew 
 The Masters, breathing Art s best atmosphere, 
 With fine and noble forms forever near ; 
 No shape of man, but something did imbue 
 With hints of beauty, on those sunny hills : 
 And, helped on every side, the Ideal grew 
 Direct from Nature, as the rose distils 
 From earth undying scent and heavenly hue. 
 
100 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 / 
 
 Around me moved a rough and simple race 
 Whose natures, fresh and uncontaminate, 
 Gave truth to life and smoothed their toilful fate 
 With honesty and love but lacked the grace 
 Of strength allied to beauty, or the free, 
 Unconscious charm of Southern symmetry, 
 And motions measured by a rhythm elate 
 And joyous as the cadence of the sea. 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 Our valley gave my hand but homely themes 
 Of peasant life, plump children at their play; 
 The shepherd lads, the girls in quaint array ; 
 Who lent no forms to shape the stately dreams 
 Which, prisoned in some void of fancy, pained 
 My thwarted aspiration, mocked the gleams 
 Ideal of regions whitherward I strained, 
 And crushed my hope with yearnings unattained. 
 
THE WOMAN. 101 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 For if, at times, among the slaves who fed 
 The ever-burning kilns, in fiercest glow 
 Some naked torso momently would show 
 Like Hell s strong angel, dipped in lurid red, 
 No model this for Saviour, seraph, saint, 
 Ensphered in golden ether : Labor s taint 
 Defaced the form, and here t were vain, I said, 
 Some lovely hint to find, and finding, paint ! 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 Ah, Art and Love ! Immortal brother-gods, 
 That will not dwell together, nor apart, 
 But make your temple in your servant s heart 
 A house of battle ! One his forehead nods 
 In drowsy bliss, and will not be disturbed, 
 The other s eager forces work uncurbed, 
 Yet most in each the other lives ; and each 
 Mounts by the other s help his crown to reach. 
 
102 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 To Love my debt was greatest : I compelled 
 Back to their sleep the dreams that stung in vain, 
 And folded Clelia in a love which held 
 The heart all fire, although its flame was nursed 
 By embers borrowed from the smouldering brain. 
 For her had Art aspired ; but now, reversed 
 The duty, Art for her must abnegate 
 Its restless, proud resolves, and idly wait. 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 The rains had whitened in the upper air, 
 And left their chill memorials glittering now 
 On Arber s shoulders, Ossa s horned brow ; 
 The summer forest of its gold was bare ; 
 Loud o er the changeless pines November drove 
 His frosty steeds, through narrowing days that wear 
 No light; and Winter settled from above, 
 White, heavy, cold, around our nest of love. 
 
THE WOMAN. 103 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 The sportive fantasies of wind and snow, 
 The corniced billows which they love to pile, 
 The ermined woods, with boughs depending low, 
 To buttress frozenly each darksome aisle, 
 The spectral hills which twilight veils in dun, 
 The season s hushing sounds, my Clelia won 
 From haunting memories, and stayed awhile 
 Her home-sick pining for the Tuscan sun. 
 
 LXXVII. 
 
 Only, when after briefest day, the moon 
 Poured down an icy light, and all around 
 Came from the iron woods a crackling sound, 
 As from the stealthy steps of Cold, and soon 
 The long-drawn howl of famished wolf was heard 
 Far in the mountains, like a shuddering bird 
 Beside my heart a nestling place she found, 
 And smiled to hear my fond, assuring word. 
 
104 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXXVIII. 
 
 So drifted on, till Death s white shadow passed 
 From edged air and stony earth, our fate : 
 Then from the milder cloud and loosening blast 
 Unto his sunnier nooks returning late, 
 Came Life, and let his flowery footprint stand. 
 Softer than wing of dove, the winds at last 
 Kissed where they smote ; the skies were blue and bland, 
 And in their lap reposed the ravished land. 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 Then tears of gummy crystal wept the pine, 
 
 And like a phantom plume, the sea-green larch 
 
 Was dropped along the mountain s lifted arch, 
 
 And morning on the meadows seemed to shine, 
 
 All day, in blossoms : cuckoo-songs were sweet, 
 
 And sweet the pastoral music of the kine 
 
 Chiming a thousand bells aloft, to meet 
 
 The herdsman s horn, the young lamb s wandering bleat ! 
 
THE WOMAN. 105 
 
 m 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 Under the forest s sombre eaves there slept 
 
 No darkness, but a balsam-breathing shade, 
 
 Rained through with light: the hurrying waters made 
 
 Music amid the solitude, and swept 
 
 Their noise of liquid laughter from afar, 
 
 Through smells of sprouting leaf and trampled grass, 
 
 And thousand tints of flowery bell and star, 
 
 To sing the year s one idyl ere it pass ! 
 
 LXXXI. 
 
 And down the happy valleys wandered we, 
 
 Released and glad, the children of the sun, 
 
 I by adoption and by nature she, 
 
 And still our love a riper color won 
 
 From the strong god in whom all colors burn. 
 
 The Earth regained her ancient alchemy 
 
 To cheat our souls with dreams of what might be, 
 
 And never is, yet, wherefore these unlearn ? 
 5* 
 
106 THE PICTUEE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 For they reclothe us with a mantle, lent 
 
 From the bright wardrobe of the Gods: the powers, 
 
 The glories of the Possible are ours: 
 
 We breathe the pure, sustaining element 
 
 Above the dust of life, steal fresh content 
 
 From distant gleams of never-gathered flowers, 
 
 Believing, rise : our very failures wear 
 
 Immortal grace from what we vainly dare ! 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 From dreams like these is shaped the splendid act 
 In painters , poets brains : we let them grow, 
 And as the season rolled in richer flow 
 To summer, from their waves a wondrous fact 
 Uprose, and shamed them with diviner glow, 
 A tremulous secret, mystic, scarce-confessed, 
 That, star-like, throbs within the coarsest breast, 
 And sets God s joy beside His creature s woe. 
 
 
THE WOMAN. 107 
 
 LXXXIT. 
 
 As one may see, along some April rill, 
 By richest mould and softest dew-fall fed, 
 The day-break blossom of a daffodil 
 Send from its heart a tenderer blossom still, 
 Flower bearing flower, so fair a marvel shed 
 Its bliss on Clelia s being; and she smiled 
 With those prophetic raptures which fulfil 
 The mother s nature ere she clasps her child. 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 Between our hearts, embracing both, there stole 
 
 A silent Presence, like to that which reigns 
 
 In Heaven, when God another world ordains. 
 
 Here, in its genesis, a formless soul 
 
 Waited the living garment it should wear 
 
 Of holiest flesh, though ours were dark with stains, 
 
 Yet clouds that blot the blue, eternal air, 
 
 Upon their folds the rainbow s beauty bear ! 
 
108 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 Our bliss in each bowed humbly down before 
 
 This revelation : other glory came, 
 
 A solemn joy, a whitest offering-flame 
 
 Fed with our prayers, and sent its radiance o er 
 
 The brinks of life, and thus the season wore 
 
 In fond suspense and sacred idleness 
 
 A long, long summer Sabbath to the shore 
 
 Where Death should smite or Life should doubly bless. 
 
 LXXXVII. 
 
 And none of all the folk we moved among 
 In that lone valley, whether man or maid, 
 Or weary woman, prematurely wrung 
 To bear the lusty flock that round her played, 
 But spake to Clelia in a gentler tongue 
 And unto her their timid reverence paid, 
 As, in her life repeated, one might see 
 Madonna s pure maternal sanctity! 
 
THE WOMAN. 109 
 
 LXXXVIII. 
 
 All knew the lady, beautiful and tall, 
 Dark, yet so pale in her strange loveliness, 
 Whom oft they saw with gliding footstep press 
 The meads, the forest s golden floor; and all 
 Knew the enchanted voice, whose alien song 
 Silenced the mountains, till the woodman lone 
 His axe let fall, and dreamed and listened long, 
 The key-flower plucked, the fairy gold his own ! 
 
 LXXXIX. 
 
 Never, they said, did year its bounty shower 
 So plenteously upon their fields, as now. 
 The lady brought their fortune : many a vow 
 Would rise to help her in her woman s hour 
 Of pain and joy, and what their hands could do 
 (The will was boundless, though so mean the power) 
 Was hers, their queen, the fairest thing they knew 
 Within the circle of the mountains blue. 
 
110 THE PICTUEE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XC. 
 
 And Autumn came, like him from Edom, him 
 With garments dyed, from Bozrah, glorious 
 In his apparel; yet his gold was dim, 
 His crimsons pale, beside the splendors warm 
 Wherewith the ripened time transfigured us. 
 The precious atoms drawn from heaven and earth, 
 And rocked by Love s own music into form, 
 Compacted lived : a soul awaited birth. 
 
 xci. 
 
 A soul was born. The hazy-mantled sun 
 Looked in on Clelia, radiant as a saint 
 Who triumphs over torture, pale and faint 
 From parted life, and kissed the life begun 
 With tender light, as quick to recognize 
 His child, in exile : the unconscious one, 
 Stray lamb of heaven, whom tears might best baptize, 
 Closed on her happy breast his mothers eyes. 
 
THE WOMAN. Ill 
 
 XCII. 
 
 Her eyes they were: her fresh-born beauty took 
 Its seat in man, that woman s heart might bow 
 One day, before the magic of that look 
 Which conquered man and held him captive now. 
 The frail and precious mould which drew from me 
 Naught but its sex, her likeness did endow 
 "With breathing grace and witching symmetry, 
 As once in baby demigod might be. 
 
 xcin. 
 
 So came from him as in Correggio s " Night " 
 The body of the Holy Child illumes 
 The stable dark, the starry Syrian glooms, 
 The rapt, adoring faces, sudden light 
 For that dark season when the sun hung low ; 
 And warmth, when earth again lay cold and white ; 
 And peace, Love reconciled with Life to know ; 
 And promise, kindling Art to rosier glow. 
 
112 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XCIV. 
 
 Here dawned the inspiration, long delayed, 
 The light of loftier fancy. As she pressed, 
 Cradled against her balmy mother-breast, 
 The child a pink on sun-kissed lilies laid 
 I saw the type of old achievement won 
 In them, the holy hint their forms conveyed : 
 And lovelier never God s Elected Maid 
 And Goddess-Mother dreamed Urbino s son ! 
 
 xcv. 
 
 But she when first mine eager hand would seize 
 Her perfect beauty troubled grew, and pale. 
 " Dear Egon, No ! " she said : " my heart would fail, 
 Alarmed for love that wraps in sanctities 
 Its earthly form : for see ! the babe may lie 
 With white, untainted soul, and in his eye 
 The light of Heaven, and pure as almond-flowers 
 His dimpling flesh, but, Egon, he is ours ! 
 
THE WOMAN. 113 
 
 XCVI. 
 
 " If blessing may be forfeited, to set 
 A child, the loveliest, in the place divine 
 Of Infant God, it were more impious yet 
 To veil the Mother s countenance in mine : 
 Ah, how should I, to human love though fair, 
 Assume her grace and with her pity shine, 
 Profane usurpress of her sacred shrine, 
 To cheat the vow and intercept the prayer ! " 
 
 xcvn. 
 
 A woman s causeless fancy ! What I said 
 I scarce remember, that the face I stole 
 Had brought herself, and if the half so wrought, 
 A surer blessing now must bring the whole, 
 And laurel cast, not jasmine, on my head. 
 The profanation was a thing of thought, 
 Or touched the artist only : who could paint, 
 If saint alone dare model be for saint ? 
 
114 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XCVIII. 
 
 And so, by Art possessed, I would not see 
 Forebodings which in woman s finer sense 
 Arise, and draw their own fulfilment thence, 
 Light clouds, yet hide the bolts of Destiny 
 And darken life, erelong. I gave, in joy, 
 To fleeting grace immortal permanence, 
 And dreamed of coming fame for all the three, 
 Myself, the fairest mother, and the boy ! 
 
 xcix. 
 
 She sat, in crimson robe and mantle blue, 
 Fondling the child in holy nakedness, 
 Resigned and calm, alas ! I could not guess 
 The haunting fear that daily deeper grew 
 In the sweet face that would its fear subdue, 
 Nor make my hand s creative rapture less : 
 But cold her kisses to my own replied, 
 And when the work completed stood she sighed, 
 
THE WOMAN. 115 
 
 C. 
 
 And from that hour a shadow seemed to hang 
 Around her life : our idyl breathed no more 
 Its flute-like joy in every strain she sang : 
 Her step the measures of an anthem wore, 
 That hushes, soothes, yet makes not wholly sad ; 
 And if, at times, my heart confessed a pang 
 To note the haunted gleam her features had, 
 I failed to read the prophecy it bore. 
 
 Ci. 
 
 Again the summer beckoned from the hills, 
 And back from Daulis came the nightingale ; 
 But when the willows shook by meadow-rills 
 Their sheeted silver, Clelia s cheek grew pale. 
 She spoke not; but I knew her fancy said 
 So shook the olives now in Arno s vale, 
 So flashed the brook along its pebbly bed, 
 Through bosky oleanders, roofed with red ! 
 
116 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 CII. 
 
 This cheer I gave : " Be sure my fame awaits 
 The work of love : this cloud will break, and we 
 Walk in the golden airs of Tuscany, 
 Guarded by that renown which consecrates 
 Our fault, if love be such ; and fame shall be 
 My shield, to shame your father s heraldry, 
 And set you in your ancient halls. Take heart, 
 And as my love you trusted, trust my art ! " 
 
 cm. 
 
 She faintly smiled, if smile the lips could stir 
 
 Which more of yearning than of hope expressed ; 
 
 A filmy mask to hide the warning guest 
 
 Of thought which evermore abode in her : 
 
 And then she kissed me, not, as once, with fire 
 
 And lingering sweetness drawn from love s desire, 
 
 But soft, as Heaven s angelic messenger 
 
 Might touch the lips of prayer, and make them blest ! 
 
THE 
 
 PICTURE OF ST. JOHN 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 THE CHILD. 
 
 I. 
 
 QAD Son of Earth, if ever to thy care 
 
 Some god intrust 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 ! 
 
120 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 in. 
 
 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 hero 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. 
 
THE CHILD. 121 
 
 IV. 
 
 But I was young, and I believed there might 
 Be perfect bounty, Fame and Love unite 
 To weave for me the yet ungranted crown, 
 Ah, fool ! and in my happy prophecy 
 Evoked a doom to pluck its promise down. 
 Tis when the distant mountains clearest be, 
 Seen through the diamond lenses of the air, 
 That storms their fiercest bolts are forging there ! 
 
 v. 
 
 I would not see the path that led apart 
 My Clelia s feet, as twere 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. 
 
122 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 
 
 VI. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 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 
 f 
 
 To babyhood, and breathe from every limb, 
 
 Made life more beautiful, revealed in him. 
 
THE CHILD. 123 
 
 VIII. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 " 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 ! 
 
124 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 X. 
 
 " 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 ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 "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 ! " 
 
THE CHILD. 125 
 
 XII. 
 
 But soon assailed my home the need of gold, 
 The miserable wants that plague and fret, 
 Repeated ever, battling with our hold 
 On all immortal aims, lest, over-bold 
 In arrogance of gift, we dare forget 
 The balanced curse : ah me ! that finest powers 
 Must stoop to menial services, and set 
 Their growth below the unlaborious flowers ! 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The precious few, whose voice of praise instructs 
 The ignorant world, were silent, I unknown: 
 My love had spurned the pathway that conducts 
 To those warm gardens where success is grown, 
 And where the plant, at first so doubtful, frail, 
 Strengthens apace and shoots above the pale : 
 Upon that barren soil I stood alone, 
 And withered fast, for what could love avail ? 
 
126 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 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 : 
 
 xv. 
 
 " 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 ! 
 
THE CHILD. 127 
 
 XVI. 
 
 " 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 ! " 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Then ceased her plea, but tears, more touching, filled 
 
 The gap of silence. Out of regions black 
 
 Wherein my fancy drifted as it willed 
 
 And drew its hopeless pictures, speeding back, 
 
 This added woe a final courage gave: 
 
 Her words, even while they smote, a force instilled 
 
 That stung my soul to action prompt and brave 
 
 And I stood up, no more a yielding slave ! 
 
128 THE PICTURE OP ST. JOHN. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 " 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. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 " 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 Baise 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 ! " 
 
THE CHILD. 129 
 
 XX. 
 
 And soon there came, as twere 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! 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Alas! twas 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. - 
 6* 
 
130 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Ay, 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 ! 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 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. 
 
THE CHILD. 131 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 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. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 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. 
 
132 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 A silver beak, a diamond eye, 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 : 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 "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 ! 
 
THE CHILD. 133 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 "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 yon lilied floor!" 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 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. 
 
134 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 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." 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 No more ! I said farewell : withdrawn afar, 
 Still faintly came to me, its clasping 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! 
 
THE CHILD. 135 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 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. 
 
 xxxni. 
 
 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 ! 
 
136 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 My body moved in its mechanic course 
 
 Of soulless functions : thought and passion ceased, 
 
 Or blindly stirred with undirected force, 
 
 A weary trance, which only Time decreased 
 
 By slow reductions ; though the blunted sense 
 
 Sought in its loss of grief a new remorse, 
 
 (As love lay dead in blank indifference,) 
 
 And courted pain, to draw some comfort thence ! 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 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 May-morn, 
 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 fled ! 
 
THE CHILD. 137 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 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 
 
138 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 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, 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 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 choek, he was so young 
 Even Nature felt her darling s loss, and sweet 
 The burial hymn by childish mourners sung. 
 
THE CHILD. 139 
 
 XL. 
 
 " 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 : 
 
 XLI. 
 
 " 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. 
 
140 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 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! 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 And when we came where, over gay arcades, 
 The towers of old Tridentum pierce the air, 
 I breathed the fascination which pervades 
 The bright approaches to a region, fair 
 With Art whose equal grace and glory falls 
 Like dew or sun, around me everywhere 
 The forms of free Arcadian festivals, 
 The lovely speech, the blossom-tinted walls ! 
 
THE CHILD. 141 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 XLV. 
 
 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. 
 
142 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XL VI. 
 
 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! 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 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. 
 
THE CHILD. 143 
 
 XL VIII. 
 
 There housed, the restful quiet for a time 
 Like a delicious opiate soothed my sense. 
 Each sight and sound of that recovered clime 
 Infused my life in balmy indolence, 
 That blunted pain, nor gave a bliss too keen : 
 And, one by one, fell off each weak defence 
 Of Sorrow, melted Memory s icy rime, 
 And Hope discovered that her buds were green. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 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? 
 
144 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 L. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 LI. 
 
 My thoughts, reacting from their former height, 
 And of their old impatience sadly healed, 
 Abjured the rapture of the starry flight 
 And turned, in penance, to the lowliest field : 
 Yet lo ! the forms of this extreme revealed 
 Mysterious meaning, unimagined worth 
 Of lines and tints, clear shadow, living light, 
 The key of Art, rusting in common earth ! 
 
THE CHILD. 145 
 
 LIT. 
 
 Had 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. 
 
 LHI. 
 
 Let me begin, I said, this alphabet, 
 These runes of Art, profusely scattered o er 
 The quarry, vineyard, garden, cliff, and shore, 
 Diffused in air, upon the water set 
 In bloom and sparkle, that my pencil yet 
 Through lower cunning climb along the scale 
 Of things, achieving higher : t were less regret, 
 
 Heroic failure, but I shall not fail ! 
 
 7 j 
 
146 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 I loved my work. The pencil s broader play 
 Had grown an appetite, wherewith I toyed 
 Until my petted hand would scarce obey 
 This new compulsion. Labor unenjoyed, 
 Save by the flattered will, with every day 
 Demands new courage, resolution fresh, 
 The old, seductive longings to allay, 
 That sting the spirit, as its lust the flesh. 
 
 LV. 
 
 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 ! 
 
THE CHILD. 147 
 
 LVI. 
 
 And now commenced a second life, wherein 
 Myself and Agatha and Angelo 
 Beheld the lonely seasons come and go, 
 Contented, whether gray with hoar-frost 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. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 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 ! 
 
148 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 For, lisping in a sweeter tongue than mine, 
 Twas 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. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 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! 
 
THE CHILD. 149 
 
 LX. 
 
 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. 
 
 LXI. 
 
 Twas 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 ! 
 
150 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 That pomp of leafy beauty he would greet 
 
 As t were his own transmitted heritage : 
 
 He looked a pride beyond his tender age, 
 
 A lordly spirit moved his little feet, 
 
 Whereat I smiled, and thought : perchance t is meet 
 
 Pandolfo s blood repairs its tarnished claim, 
 
 But mine, erelong, shall yet more proudly beat, 
 
 To make him heritor of fresher fame. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 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. 
 
THE CHILD. 151 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 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 ? " 
 
 LXV. 
 
 " 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." 
 
152 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 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. 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 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 ! 
 
THE CHILD. 153 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 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 ! 
 7* 
 
154 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 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 likeness 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 ! 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 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 ! " 
 
THE CHILD. 155 
 
 LXXIT. 
 
 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 ! " 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 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 ! 
 
156 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 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 : 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 "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. 
 
THE CHILD. 157 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 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, 
 Save he inherited her pilfered fate, 
 And trod, for her, Pandolfo s palace-floor. 
 
 LXXVII. 
 
 This to achieve, which duty to the dead 
 Had made a haunting conscience, now became 
 An added sting to goad me on to fame, 
 And beckoned still, as by his cradle-bed, 
 But fairer, many a clear, inspiring dream 
 Of noble pictures, from his beauty drawn : 
 His fortune s instrument should be the theme 
 Himself must give, the young, divine St. John ! 
 
158 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXXVIII. 
 
 * 
 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. 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 Meanwhile, until his round and dimpling grace 
 Put on the dainty slenderness that lies 
 In youth, and fuller soul inform his face, 
 Unweariedly I wrought, Murillo-wise, 
 On idle groups of tawny peasant-boys, 
 The coarser wild-weeds of his garden-race, 
 In the fine postures which they improvise, 
 And mellow tints, held in harmonious poise. 
 
THE CHILD. 159 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 ftr 
 
 The seasons came and went. In sun or 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. 
 
 LXXXI. 
 
 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 ! " 
 
160 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 My choicest colors, on the palette spread, 
 Provoked the appetite : the canvas clear 
 
 if 
 
 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. 
 
THE CHILD. 161 
 
 LXXXIV. 
 
 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. 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 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. 
 
. . 
 
 162 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 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? 
 
 LXXXVII. 
 
 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. 
 
THE CHILD. 163 
 
 LXXXVIII. 
 
 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. 
 
 LXXXIX. 
 
 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 ! 
 
164 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XC. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 xci. 
 
 They might be mine, he urged, unless I shrank, 
 Too proud or timid to assert my claim. 
 Men called me shy ; but here neglect were shame, 
 Shame to repel, not take, a nobler rank. 
 So, half in sadness, half in hope, I gave 
 The word he sought, and followed whence he came ; 
 And my St. John, upon the fading bank, 
 Answered my farewell signal from the wave. 
 
THE CHILD. 165 
 
 XCII. 
 
 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. 
 
 XCIII. 
 
 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! 
 
166 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XCIV. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 xcv. 
 
 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. 
 
THE CHILD. 16T 
 
 XCVI. 
 
 Vain, too, were all my questions : none could say 
 When, how, or whither flew my bird away : 
 No boat received, no peasant s cart conveyed 
 The fugitives ; nor had a cry been heard 
 From the near vineyard or the olive shade, 
 Yet they had gone and left the air unstirred 
 With any echo, and the earth unpressed 
 With any track to guide me in my quest ! 
 
 xcvn. 
 
 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. 
 
168 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XCVIII. 
 
 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. 
 
 xcix. 
 
 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. 
 
THE CHILD. 169 
 
 C. 
 
 Twas 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. 
 
 ci. 
 
 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!" 
 
170 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 CII. 
 
 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. 
 
V 
 
 THE 
 
 PICTURE OF ST. JOHN 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 THE PICTURE. 
 
 I. 
 
 A S when a traveller, whose journey lies 
 
 In some still valley, slowly wanders on 
 By brook and meadow, cottage, bower, and lawn, 
 Familiar sights, that charm his level eyes 
 For many a league, until, with late surprise 
 He starts to find those gentle regions gone, 
 And through the narrowing dell, whose crags enclose 
 His path, irresolutely, sadly goes : 
 
174 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 II. 
 
 For what may wait beyond, he cannot guess, 
 A garden or a desert, in such wise 
 I went, in ignorance that mocked the guise 
 Of hope, and filled me with obscure distress. 
 Locked in a pass of doubt, whose cliffs concealed 
 The coming life, the temper of the skies, 
 I craved the certain day, that soon should rise 
 Upon a fortunate or fatal field ! 
 
 in. 
 
 The House of Life hath many chambers. He 
 Who deems his mansion built, a dreamer vain, 
 A tottering shell inhabits, and shall see 
 The ruthless years hurl down his masonry; 
 While they who plan but as they slowly gain, 
 Where that which was gives that which is to be 
 Its form and symbols, build the house divine, 
 In life a temple, and in death a shrine! 
 
THE PICTURE. 175 
 
 IV. 
 
 Too fast had mine ambition built: too sure 
 The structure stood upon its treacherous base. 
 One blast had levelled what I thought secure, 
 Nor could the gathered fragments e er replace 
 The first fair edifice. My peaceful Past 
 Was closed and sealed : and forth my life was cast 
 To breast the heady tides, the shocks endure 
 Of jostling aims, yet hold its fortune fast. 
 
 v. 
 
 And following as the guiding vision led, 
 
 With briefest rest, with never-faltering feet, 
 
 By highways white, through field or chattering street 
 
 Or windy gorges of the hills I sped, 
 
 And crossed the level floors of silk and wine, 
 
 The slow canals, and, shrunken in their bed, 
 
 The sandy rivers, till the welcome line 
 
 Before me rose of Tuscan Apennine. 
 
176 THE PICTUEE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The southern slopes, with shout and festal song, 
 Rejoiced in vintage : as I wandered by, 
 Came faun-like figures, purple to the thigh 
 From foaming vats, and laughing women, strong 
 To bear their Bacchic loads : then, towards the town 
 Through blended toil and revel hastening down, 
 I saw the terrace saw, and checked a cry, 
 Whence Clelia flung to me the jasmine crown ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 Alas ! how changed from him that wreath who wore, 
 The youth all rapture, hope and sense uncloyed, 
 New-landed on the world s illumined shore, 
 Walked now the man ! My downward path before 
 There sprang no arch of triumph from the void : 
 No censers burned: not as a conqueror 
 I entered Florence, no ! a slave, that fed 
 On one last fragment of the feast I spread. 
 
THE PICTURE. 177 
 
 VIII. 
 
 There stretched the garden-wall : the yellow sun 
 Above it burnished every cypress spire, 
 Tipped the tall laurel-clumps with points of fire, 
 And smote the palace-marbles till they won 
 The golden gleam of ages. Yet, above 
 That mellow splendor stood the beauty flown 
 Of midnights, when around it blew and shone 
 The breeze of Passion and the moon of Love ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 At last the door ! With trembling touch I tried 
 The latch : it shook : the rusty bolts gave way. 
 As in a dream the roses I espied, 
 Heard as in dreams the fountain s lulling play. 
 There curled the dolphins in the shining shower 
 And rode the Triton boys : on either side 
 The turf was diapered with many a flower, 
 And darkling drooped our green betrothal bower. 
 
 8* L 
 
178 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 X. 
 
 Scarce had I entered, when there came a sound 
 
 Of voices from the pillared portico, 
 
 And twofold burst a cry, as Angelo, 
 
 Across the paths, with wildly-joyous bound 
 
 Sprang to my bosom : while, as one astound 
 
 With sense of some unexpiated wrong, 
 
 The nurse entreated : " Bid thy father go ! " 
 
 But " Stay ! " he cried : " where hast thou been so long? " 
 
 XI. 
 
 " Stay, father ! thou shalt paint me as thou wilt, 
 Each morning, in the silent northern hall; 
 But when, so tired, thou seest mine eyelids fall, 
 Then shall I take my sword with golden hilt, 
 And call the grooms, and bid them saddle straight 
 For us the two white horses in the stall " 
 Here shrieked the nurse, with face of evil fate, 
 " Go, Signer, go ! ah, God ! too late, too late ! " 
 
THE PICTURE. 179 
 
 XII. 
 
 His haste dividing, him to clasp I knelt 
 Twixt porch and fountain, blind with tearful joy 
 As on my breast his beating heart I felt, 
 And on my mouth the kisses of the boy, 
 Wherein his mother s phantom kisses poured 
 A stream of ancient rapture, love restored, 
 When, like the lightning ere the stroke is dealt, 
 Before me flashed the old Marchese s sword! 
 
 XIII. 
 
 So haggard, sunken-eyed, convulsed with wrath 
 
 That paints a devil on the face of age, 
 
 He glared, that, quick to shield my child from scath, 
 
 To fly the menace of unreasoning rage, 
 
 I caught him in my cloak, and dashed apart 
 
 The tangled roses of the garden-path : 
 
 Pandolfo hate such fatal swiftness hath 
 
 Leapt in advance, and thrust to pierce my heart! 
 
180 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 I saw the flame-like sparkle of the blade : 
 Heard, sharp and shrill, the nurse s fearful cry: 
 Warm blood gushed o er my hands : a fluttering sigh 
 Came from the childish lips, that feebly made 
 These words, as prompted by the darkening eye, 
 " Good night, my father ! " And I knew not why 
 My boy should sleep, so suddenly and so well, 
 But trembling seized me : clasping him, I fell. 
 
 xv. 
 
 Nor loosed my hold, although I dimly knew 
 Pandolfo s hand let fall the blade accurst, 
 And he, his race s hoary murderer, burst 
 The awful stillness that around us grew, 
 With miserable groans : his prostrate head 
 Touched mine, as helpless, o er the fading dead, 
 His hands met mine, and both as gently nursed 
 The limbs, and strove to stay the warmth that fled. 
 
THE PICTURE. 181 
 
 XVI. 
 
 His Past, my Future, in the body met, 
 His wrongs, my hopes, the selfsame fatal blow 
 Dashed into darkness : blood Lethe an wet 
 My blighted summer, his autumnal snow, 
 And all of Life did either life forget, 
 Except the piteous death between us : so, 
 Together pressed, involved in half-embrace, 
 We hung above the cold, angelic face. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 " Her father, why should Heaven direct thy hand 
 Against her child, thy blood, chastising thee?" 
 "I loved the boy " "But couldst not pardon me, 
 His father ? " " Nay, but thou thyself hadst banned 
 Beyond forgiveness ! " " Even at his demand ? " 
 " Ah, no ! for his sweet sake might all things be, 
 Except to lose him." " He is lost, and we 
 (Thou, too, old man!) are childless in the land!" 
 
182 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Thus brokenly, scarce knowing what we said, 
 We clung like drowning men beneath the wave, 
 That nor can hurt each other, nor can save, 
 But breast to breast with iron arms are wed 
 Till Death so leaves them. Us the servants led 
 Pale, awe-struck helpers through the palace-door 
 And glimmering halls, to lay on Clelia s bed 
 The broken lily we together bore. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 God s thunder-stroke his haughty heart had bowed : 
 It bled with mine among the common dust 
 Where Rank puts on the sackcloth of the crowd, 
 And sits in equal woe : his guilt avowed, 
 And mine, there came a sad, remorseful trust, 
 And while the double midnight gathered there 
 From sable hangings and the starless air, 
 We held each other s hands, and wept aloud. 
 
THE PICTURE. 183 
 
 XX. 
 
 And he confessed, how, after weary search 
 And many a vain device employed, he found 
 By chance in Zara, on Dalmatian ground, 
 As altar-piece within a votive church 
 Some shipwrecked Plutus built, the Mother mild 
 In whose foreboding face my Clelia smiled; 
 And thence, by slow degrees, to Como s side 
 Had followed home the trail I thought to hide. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 And there had seized me, but the boy displayed 
 Patrician beauty, and the failing line, 
 Now trembling o er extinction, might evade 
 Its fate in him. This changed the first design, 
 And what the sordid nurse for gold betrayed 
 Or those Art-hucksters chattered, easy made 
 The rape, whose issue should, with even blow, 
 Revenge and compensate : but now, ah, woe ! 
 
184 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 The issue had been reached : too dark and drear, 
 Too tragic, pitiful, and heart-forlorn, 
 Could any heart contain it, to be borne, 
 And mine refused, rebelled. Behind his bier 
 No meek-eyed Resignation walked, or Grief 
 That catches sunshine in each falling tear 
 To build her pious rainbow : but with scorn 
 I thrust aside the truths that bring relief. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 I spurned, though kindly, for the old man s frame 
 Stumbled in Death s advancing twilight, all 
 His offers : gold the proud Pandolfan hall 
 Place, that should goad the lagging feet of Fame 
 And from his sombre palace, shuddering still, 
 Cold with remembered horror, took my name, 
 My own, restored ; and climbed the northern hill 
 As one who lives, though dead his living will. 
 
THE PICTURE. 185 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Some habit , working in my passive feet, 
 Its guidance gave : the mornings came and went : 
 Around me spread the fields, or closed the street, 
 And often, Night s expanded firmament 
 Opened above the lesser dome of Day, 
 And wild, tumultuous tongues of darkness sent 
 To vex my path, till, in our old retreat, 
 
 I ceased to hold my reckless heart at bay ! 
 & 
 
 XXV. 
 
 I had not known how dear, how close-entwined 
 His lovely life : but now the knowledge brought 
 A sting to torture sick, dismembered thought, 
 And, reaching through the heart to taint the mind, 
 Infected all my being. Sorrow stirred 
 The springs of Evil, and my fancy sought 
 
 In aims reversed, perverted act and word, 
 
 , 
 
 The laws of this misgoverned life to find. 
 
186 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Some natures are there, fashioned ere their birth 
 For sun, and spring-time, and the bliss of earth ; 
 Who only sing, achieve, and triumph, when 
 The Hours caress, and each bright circumstance 
 Leaps to its place, as in a starry dance, 
 To shape their story. These the fortunate men, 
 When Fate consents, whose lives are ever young, 
 And shine around whate er they wrought or sung ! 
 
 * 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Akin to these am I, or deemed it so, 
 
 And thus beyond my present wreck beheld 
 
 No far-off rescue. All my mind, impelled 
 
 By some blind wrath that would resent the blow, 
 
 Though impotent, caught action from despair, 
 
 And reached, and groped, as when a man lets go 
 
 A jewel in the dark, and seeks it where 
 
 The furzes prick him and the brambles tear. 
 
THE PICTURE. 187 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 The clash of inconsistent qualities 
 No labor stayed, or beauteous passion smoothed, 
 But each let loose, and grasping, by degrees, 
 Sole sway, made chaos. -Turbulent, unsoothed 
 By either s rule, since order failed therein, 
 And hope, the tidal star of restless seas, 
 I turned from every height, once fair to win, 
 And sinned gainst Art the one unpardoned sin! 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 For thus I reasoned: what avail my gifts, 
 Which but attract, provoke the spoiling Fate ? 
 Nor for themselves their destinies create, 
 But task my life ; and then the thunder rifts 
 Their laid foundations ! Why of finer nerve 
 The members doomed to bear more cruel weight? 
 Or daintier senses, if they only serve 
 To double pangs, already doubly great ? 
 
188 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Lo ! yonder hind, on whom doth Life impose 
 So slight a burden, finds his path prepared ; 
 Unthinking fares as all his fathers fared, 
 And cheap-won joys and soon-subsiding woes 
 Nor cleave his heart too deep, nor lift too high. 
 Peaceful as dew-mist from an evening sky 
 The years descend, until they bid him close 
 Upon an easy world a quiet eye ! 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 He sees the shell of Earth no more : yet more 
 Were useless, attributes of thankful toil ; 
 The olive orchards, dark with ripening oil ; 
 The misty grapes, the harvests, tawny-hoar ; 
 The glossy melons, swelling from the vine ; 
 The breezy lake, alive with darting spoil; 
 And dances woo from yonder purple shore, 
 And yonder Alps but cool his summer wine ! 
 
THE PICTURE. 189 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 He lives the common life of Earth : she grants 
 
 Result to instinct, food to appetite : 
 
 With no repressed desire his bosom pants, 
 
 Nor that self-torturing, questioning inward sight 
 
 Vexes his light, unconscious consciousness. 
 
 He loves, and multiplies his life, no less 
 
 His virile pride and fatherly delight ; 
 
 And all that smites me, visits him to bless. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 If this the law, that narrower powers enjoy 
 
 Their use, denied the greater, nay, are nursed 
 
 And helped, while these their energies destroy 
 
 In baffled aspirations, crossed and cursed 
 
 By what with brightening promise lured them on, 
 
 Then life is false, its purposes reversed, 
 
 Its luck for those who leave its veils undrawn, 
 
 And Art the mocking glory of its dawn ! 
 
190 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 "What help, that oft a shining avenue 
 Opens behind the grave, and down through time, 
 Self-builded, bears a name that seems sublime ? 
 That laurel shoots, where only nightshade grew? 
 Far happier he, whose breathing day is rife 
 With restful peace, to whom existence brings 
 Joy in itself, and in the range of things, 
 And, leaf by leaf, unfolds the flower of Life ! 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Not calmly, as my memory now recalls 
 
 The crisis, fierce, vehemently, I tracked 
 
 The fatal truth through every potent fact 
 
 Of being ; now in fancied carnivals 
 
 Of sense abiding, now with gloomy face 
 
 Fronting the deeper question that appalls, 
 
 Of " Wherefore Life ? and what this brawling race, 
 
 Peopling a mote of dust in endless space ? " 
 
THE PICTURE. 191 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 fools!" I cried, "O fools, a thousand-fold 
 Tormented with your folly, seeking good 
 Where Good is not, nor Evil ! words that hold 
 Your natures captive, making ye the food 
 And spoil of them that dare, with vision bold, 
 See Nothingness ! slaves of transmitted fear 
 Of Power imagined, never understood, 
 The Demon rules you still that set you here! 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 " The masters they, who counterfeit your dreams 
 And play upon them, with a grand disdain 
 Past your detection: yet were knowledge vain 
 To ye, whose pathway touches no extremes, 
 And me, who will not stoop to seek its aid, 
 But in this solitary house of pain 
 Sit till I perish!" Thus a sharper blade 
 Cut to the quick, and smarted unallayed. 
 
192 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 And as a voyager, whose birchen shell 
 Shoots down a flashing rapid, failed his course, 
 And spun and whirled around a churning well 
 Of torn, wild waters, foldeth up the force 
 Of helpless arms, and waiteth what may come ; 
 So waited I, in scornful indolence 
 That seemed awhile my misery to benumb, 
 But grew, erelong, another aching sense. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 The curse I would have broken bound me still. 
 As flowery chains aforetime, fetters now 
 Of tyrant Art subdued my wandering will, 
 And made its youthful, glad, spontaneous vow 
 An iron law, whence there was no escape. 
 No rest, though hopeless, would my brain allow, 
 But drew the pictures of its haunting ill, 
 And gave its reckless fancies hue and shape. 
 
THE PICTURE. 193 
 
 XL. 
 
 So, after many days, the cobwebbed door 
 Creaked open : naught was there displaced ; 
 And first I turned, with pangs and shuddering haste, 
 My young St. John, I would not see it more. 
 Then snatched an empty canvas from the floor 
 And drew a devil: therein did I taste 
 Fierce joys of liberty, for what I would 
 I would, Art was itself a Devilhood ! 
 
 XLI. 
 
 This guilty joy, the holiest to debase, 
 To use the cunning, born of pious toil, 
 Each purest aspiration to assoil, 
 And drag in ribaldry the pencil s grace, 
 Grew by indulgence. Forms and groups unclean 
 Or mocking, faster than my hand could trace 
 Their vivid, branding features, thrust a screen 
 My restless woe and dead desire between. 
 
 9 
 
194 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Sometimes, perchance, a grim, sarcastic freak 
 My pencil guided, and I stiffly drew 
 Byzantine saints, of flat, insipid cheek 
 And monstrous eye ; or some Madonna meek, 
 With dwarfish mouth, like those of Cimabue ; 
 Or martyr-figures, less of flesh than bone, 
 Lean hands, and lips forever making moan, 
 A travesty of woe, distorted, weak. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Or, higher ranging, touched the field that charms 
 Monastic painters, who, in vision warm 
 The Mystery grasp, and wondrous frescoes form 
 Where God the Father, with wide-spreading arms, 
 Rides on the whirlwind which His breath has made, 
 Or sows His judgments, Earth in darkness laid 
 Beneath Him, works which only not blaspheme, 
 Because the faith that wrought them was supreme. 
 
THE PICTURE. 195 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Thus habit grew, imagination stalked 
 In shameless hardihood from things profane 
 To sacred : nothing hindered, awed, or baulked 
 The appetite diseased, and such a plan 
 I sketched, as never since the world began 
 So strange and mad engendered any brain. 
 Once entertained, the lovely-loathsome guest 
 Clung to my fancy and my hand possessed. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Not broad the canvas, but the shapes it showed, 
 With utmost art defined, might almost seem 
 To grow and spread, dilating with the theme. 
 Filling the space, a lurid ocean glowed 
 In endless billows, tipped with foam of fire, 
 Shoreless : but far more dreadful than a dream 
 Of Hell, the shapes which in that sea abode, 
 TVith sting and fang, and scaly coil and spire ! 
 
196 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XL VI. 
 
 One with a lizard s sinuous motion slipped 
 Forth from the dun recesses of the wave, 
 Man-eyed and browed, but tusked and lipped 
 Like river-horse : its claws another drave 
 Within a ghastly head, whose dim eyes gave 
 Slow tears of blood ; and with a burning tongue 
 In brazen jaws out-thrust, another stripped 
 From floating bones the flesh that round them clung! 
 
 XL VII. 
 
 Far-off, upraised, appeared a crimson hand, 
 Clenched as in agony upon a snake 
 That stung it ever: midway o er the lake 
 Drifted what seemed a half-extinguished brand, 
 But those dull sparks were eyes, that rounded black 
 A woman s bosom : flame-red vultures fanned 
 Their horny wings, and swam along her track 
 A nameless, bloated Thing, with warty back ! 
 
THE PICTURE. 197 
 
 XL VIII. 
 
 And in the midst, suspended from above 
 Just o er the blazing foam, in light intense, 
 A naked youth a form of strength and love 
 And beauty, perfect as the artist s sense 
 Dreams of a god ; and every glorious limb 
 Burned in a glow that made those billows dim, 
 A weird and awful brilliance, coming whence 
 No eye might fathom, dashed alone on him ! 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 Let down from Somewhere by a mighty chain 
 Linked round his middle, lightly, graciously 
 He swung, and all his body seemed to be 
 Compact of molten metal, such a stain 
 Of angry scarlet streamed and shot around : 
 The face convulsed, yet whether so with pain 
 Or awful joy, no gazers might agree, 
 And damp the crispy gold his brows that crowned. 
 
198 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 L. 
 
 And, as he swung, all hybrid monsters near, 
 Dark dragon-leech, huge vermin human-faced, 
 Their green eyes turned on him with hideous leer, 
 Or stretched abhorrent tentacles, to taste 
 His falling ripeness. Through the picture spread 
 A sense of tumult, hinting to the ear 
 The snap and crackle of those waters red, 
 And hiss, and howl, and bestial noises dread. 
 
 LI. 
 
 Unweariedly I wrought, each grim detail 
 As patient-perfect, as from Denner s brush, 
 Of hair, or mouldy hide, or pliant mail, 
 Or limbs, slow-parting, as the grinders crush 
 Their quivering fibres : good the workmanship, 
 Yet something unimagined seemed to fail, 
 A crowning Horror, in whose iron grip 
 The heart should stifle, bloodless be the lip. 
 
THE PICTURE. 199 
 
 LII. 
 
 This to invent, with hot, unresting mind 
 I labored : early sat and late, possessed 
 With evil images, with wicked zest 
 To wreak my mood, though it might curse my kind, 
 On Evil s purest type, and horridest ; 
 And never young ambition heretofore 
 In noble service so itself outwore. 
 What thus we seek, or soon or late we find. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 One morn of winter, when unmelted frost, 
 Beneath a low-hung vault of moveless cloud. 
 Silvered the world, even while my head was bowed 
 In half-despair, my brain the Horror crossed, 
 Unheralded ; and never human will 
 Achieved such fearful triumph ! Never came 
 The form of that which language cannot name, 
 So armed the life of souls to crush and kill ! 
 
200 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 And this be never unto men revealed, 
 To curse by mere existence ! Knowledge taints, 
 Drawn from such crypts, the whitest robes of saints 
 Though faith be firm, and warrior-virtue steeled 
 Against assault, the Possible breaks in 
 Their borders, and the soul that cannot yield 
 Must needs receive the images it paints, 
 And shudder, sinless, in the air of Sin ! 
 
 LV. 
 
 My blood runs chill, remembering now the laugh 
 Wherewith, enlightened, I the pencil seized, 
 Half deadly-smitten, fascinated half, 
 Yet sworn to do the dreadful thing I pleased ! 
 All things upheld my mood with evil guise : 
 The palette-colors, to my sense diseased, 
 "Winked wickedly, like devils slimy eyes, 
 And darkness closed me from the drooping skies ! 
 
201 
 
 LVI. 
 
 As when a harp-string in a silent room 
 
 At midnight snaps, with weird, melodious twang, 
 
 So suddenly, through inner, outer gloom 
 
 A sweet, sharp sound, vibrating slowly, rang 
 
 And sank to humming music ; while a stream 
 
 Of gathering odor followed, as in dream 
 
 We braid the bliss of music and perfume, 
 
 And pierced, I sat, with some divinest pang. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 And, as from sound and fragrance born, a glow 
 All rosy-golden, fair as Alpine snow 
 At sunset, grew, mist-like at first, and dim, 
 But brightening, folding inwards, fold on fold, 
 Until my ravished vision could behold 
 Complete, each line of sunny-shining limb 
 And sainted head, soft-posed as I had drawn 
 
 My boy my Angelo my young St. John ! 
 9* 
 
202 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 beauteous ghost ! sacred loveliness ! 
 Unworthy I to look upon thy face, 
 Unworthy thy transfigured form to trace, 
 That stood, expectant, waiting but to bless 
 By miracle, where I intended crime ! 
 The folded scroll, the shadowy cross of reed 
 He bore, St. John, but not of mortal seed : 
 So God beheld him, in that early time ! 
 
 LIX. 
 
 Dew came to burning eyes : a heavenly rain, 
 A balmy deluge, bathed my arid heart, 
 And washed that hateful fabric of the brain 
 To rot, a ruin, in some Hell of Art. 
 A sweet, unquestioning, obedient mood 
 Made swift revulsion from the broken strain 
 Of my revolt ; and still the Phantom wooed, 
 As bright, and wonderful, and mute, it stood. 
 
THE PICTURE. 203 
 
 LX. 
 
 Yet I, through all dissolving, trembling deeps 
 Of consciousness, his angel-errand knew. 
 The guilty picture fell, and forth I drew 
 My dim St. John from out the dusty heaps, 
 And cleansed it first, and kissed in reverence 
 The shadowy lips, fresh colors took, and true, 
 And painted, while on each awakened sense 
 The awful beauty of the Phantom grew. 
 
 LXI. 
 
 And grew the joy, past all permitted joys 
 Of flesh or spirit, to originate 
 Immortal types, which no defect alloys, 
 But perfect in their godlike equipoise 
 Of Truth and Vision ! Here we touch the state 
 Of gods themselves, and none shall coldly rate 
 What thus is born of Beauty s right to be, 
 And being, stamps its own eternity! 
 
204 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 All hoarded craft, all purposes and powers 
 Together worked : the scattered gleams of thought 
 As through a glass my heart together brought 
 To light my hand : the chariots of the Hours 
 For me were stayed : I knew not Earth nor Time, 
 But painted nimbly in a trance sublime, 
 And tint by tint my charmed pencil caught, 
 And line by line, the loveliness it sought. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 Mine eyes were purged from film : I saw and fixed 
 The subtle secrets, not with old despair 
 But with undoubting faith my colors mixed, 
 And with unfaltering hand the breeze-blown hair, 
 The dark, unfathomed eyes, the lips of youth, 
 The dainty, fleeting grace that stands betwixt 
 The babe and child, in members pure and bare, 
 Portrayed, with joy that owned my pencil s truth. 
 
THE PICTURE. 205 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 And he, my heavenly model ! how he shone, 
 Unwearied, silent, drawn, a golden form, 
 Against the background of a sky of storm, 
 On Ammon s desert hills ! The landscape lone 
 Through all its savage slopes and gorges smiled, 
 Him to enframe, the God-selected child, 
 And o er the shadowy distance fell a gleam 
 That touched with promised peace its barren dream. 
 
 LXV. 
 
 At last, the saffron clearness of the west. 
 From under clouds, shot forth elegiac ray 
 That sang the burial of the wondrous day ; 
 And sad, mysterious music in my breast, 
 As at the coming, now the close expressed. 
 Ah, God! I dared not watch him float away, 
 But, seized and shaken by the fading spell, 
 And covering up my face, exhausted fell. 
 
206 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 There, when my beating heart no longer shook 
 The sense that listened, though that music died, 
 A solemn Presence lingered at my side ; 
 And drop by drop, as forms an infant brook 
 Within a woodland hollow, soft, unheard, 
 And out of nothing braids its slender tide, 
 The sense of speech the living silence stirred 
 And wordless sound became melodious word ! 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 No individual voice, the accents breathed 
 Continuous message through a sense unknown ; 
 And whether he whose semblance Heaven bequeathed 
 To save me, in angelic wisdom grown 
 The child his father s teacher comforted; 
 Or on my soul, its madness overthrown, 
 The Truth an inward revelation shed, 
 T were vain to guess : I listened, and was led. 
 
THE PICTURE. 207 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 "O weak of will!" (so spake what seemed a voice) 
 " And slave of sense, that, hovering in extremes, 
 Dost over-soar, and undermine thy dreams, 
 Behold the lowest, highest ! Make thy choice, 
 Lord of the vile or servant of the pure : 
 Be free, range all that is, if better seems 
 Freedom to smite thyself, than to endure 
 The pain that worketh thine immortal cure ! 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 " Lo ! never any living brain knew peace, 
 That saw not, rooted in the scheme of things, 
 Assailing and protecting Evil ! Cease 
 To beat this steadfast law with bleeding wings, 
 For know, that never any living brain, 
 "Which rested not within its ordered plane, 
 Restrung the harp of life with sweeter strings, 
 Or made new melodies, except of pain ! 
 

 208 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 "Where wast thou, when the world s foundations first 
 Were laid? Didst thou the azure tent unfold? 
 Or bid the young May-morning s car of gold 
 Herald the seasons? Wouldst thou see reversed 
 The sacred order ? Why, if life be cursed, 
 Add to its curses thy rebellion bold ? 
 Or has thy finer wisdom only yearned 
 For thankless gifts and recompense unearned? 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 " Come, thou hast questioned God : I question thee. 
 And truly thou art smitten, yet repress 
 Thine old impatience: calm the eyes that see 
 How blows give strength, and sharpest sorrows bless. 
 Free art thou: is thy liberty so fair 
 To hide the ghost of vanished happiness, 
 And sleep st thou sweeter under skies, so bare 
 These thunder-strokes were welcome to its air? 
 
THE PICTURE. 209 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 "Why is thy life so sorely smitten? Wait, 
 And thou shalt learn! Dead stones thy teachers were: 
 Through years of toil thy hand did minister 
 To joyous Art: thou wast content with Fate. 
 Take now thy ruined passion, fix its date, 
 Peruse its growth, and, if thou canst, replan 
 The blended facts of Life that made thee man; 
 Could aught be spared, or changed for other state ? 
 
 LXXHI. 
 
 " Not less thy breathing bliss than yonder hind 
 Thou enviest, but more: therein it lies, 
 That each experience brings a twin surprise, 
 As mirrored in the glad, creative mind, 
 And in the beating heart. Behold ! he bows 
 To adverse circumstance, to change and death; 
 But thou wouldst place thy fortune his beneath, 
 Shaming the double glory on thy brows ! 
 
210* THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 " His pangs outworn, perchance some feeling lives 
 For those of others : thine the lordly power 
 Transmuting all that loss or suffering gives 
 To Beauty! Even thy most despairing hour 
 Some darker grace informs, and like a bee 
 Thine Art sits hoarding in thy Passion s flower: 
 So vast thy need, no phase thine eye can see 
 Of Earth or Life, that not enriches thee ! 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 " Such is the Artist, drawing precious use 
 From every fate, and so by laws divine 
 Encompassed, that in glad obedience shine 
 His works the fairer: his the flag of truce 
 Between the warring worlds of soul and sense : 
 By neither mastered, holding both apart, 
 Or blending in a newer excellence, 
 He weds the haughty brain and yearning heart. 
 
THE PICTURE. 211 
 
 LXXVT. 
 
 " Beneath tempestuous, shifting movement laid, 
 
 The base of steadfast Order he beholds, 
 
 And from the central vortex, unafraid, 
 
 Marks how all action evermore unfolds 
 
 Forth from a point of absolute repose, 
 
 Which hints of God; and how, in gleams betrayed, 
 
 The Perfect even in imperfection shows, 
 
 And Earth a bud, but breathing of the rose ! 
 
 LXXVII. 
 
 "Whose feet are firm, although his heart be tost; 
 Who holds his agony with steady hand 
 Till it be dumb, and dares his work remand, 
 Not weakly sacrifice, is never lost. 
 The Master he, whom Destiny obeys, 
 Though seeming first to thwart the thing he planned; 
 And, whether men forget, condemn, or praise, 
 He owns the world and lives immortal days ! " 
 
212 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXXVIII. 
 
 Even as the last stroke of a Sabbath bell, 
 Heard in the Sabbath silence of a dell, 
 Sounds on and on, with fainter, thinner note, 
 Distincter ever, till its dying swell 
 Draws after it the listener s ear, to float 
 Farther and farther into skies remote, 
 So, when what seemed a voice had ceased, the strain 
 Drew after it the waiting, listening brain. 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 And, following far, my senses on the track 
 Slid into darkness. Dead to life, I lay 
 Plunged in oblivious slumber, still and black, 
 All through the night and deep into the day: 
 Yet was it sleep, not trance, restoring Sleep, 
 That from the restless soul its house of clay 
 Protects ; and when I woke, her dew so deep 
 Had drenched, the wondrous Past was washed away. 
 
THE PICTURE. 213 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 But there, before me, its recorded gift 
 Flashed from the easel, so divinely bright 
 It shamed the morning: then, returning swift, 
 The wave of Memory rolled, and pure delight 
 Filled mine awakening spirit, and I wept 
 With contrite heart, redeemed, enfranchised quite: 
 My sick revolt was healed, the Demon slept, 
 And God was good, and Earth her promise kept. 
 
 LXXXI. 
 
 I wandered forth ; and lo ! the halcyon world 
 Of sleeping wave, and velvet-folded hill, 
 And stainless air and sunshine, lay so still ! 
 No mote of vapor on the mountains curled; 
 But lucid, gem-like, blissful, as if sin 
 Or more than gentlest grief had never been, 
 Each lovely thing, of tint that shone impearled, 
 As dwelt some dim beatitude therein! 
 
214 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 There, as I stood, the contadini came 
 
 With anxious, kindly faces, seeking me; 
 
 And caught my hands, and called me by my name, 
 
 As one from danger snatched might welcomed be. 
 
 Such had they feared, their gentle greeting told, 
 
 Seeing the cottage shut, the chimney free 
 
 Of that blue household breath, whose rings, unrolled, 
 
 The sign of home, the life of landscape, hold. 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 So God s benignant hand directing wrought, 
 And Man and Nature took me back to life. 
 My cry was hushed: the forms of child and wife 
 Smiled from a solemn, moonlit land of thought, 
 A realm of peaceful sadness. Sad, yet strong, 
 My soul stood up, threw off its robes of strife, 
 And quired anew the world-old human song, 
 Accepting patience and forgetting wrong! 
 
THE PICTURE. 215 
 
 LXXXIV. 
 
 Erelong, my living joy in Art returned, 
 But reverently felt, and purified 
 By recognition of the bounty spurned, 
 And meek acceptance in the place of pride. 
 Yet nevermore should brush of mine be drawn 
 O er the unfinished picture of St. John : 
 "What from the lovely miracle I learned, 
 The lines of colder toil should never hide. 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 Though incomplete, it gave the prophecy 
 Of far-off power, whereto my patient mind 
 Must set its purpose, saying unto me : 
 "Make sure the gift, the fleeting fortune bind, 
 What once a moment was, may ever be ! " 
 And when, in time, this hope securer grew, 
 Unto the picture, whence my truth I drew, 
 A sacred dedication I assigned. 
 
216 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 Pandolfo dead, the body of my child 
 
 Upon his mother s lonely breast I laid, 
 
 A late return ; and o er their ashes made 
 
 A chapel, in the green Bohemian wild, 
 
 For weary toil, pure thought, and silent prayer, 
 
 A simple shrine, of all adornment bare, 
 
 Save o er the altar, where, completed now, 
 
 St. John looks down, with Heaven upon his brow ! 
 
 LXXXVII. 
 
 The Past accepts no sacrifice : its gates 
 Alike atonement and revenge out-bar. 
 We take its color, yet our spirits are 
 Thrust forward by a power which antedates 
 Their own : the hand of Art outreaches Fate s, 
 And lifts the bright, unrisen, refracted star 
 Above our dark horizon, showing thus 
 A future to the faith that fades in us. 
 
THE PICTURE. 217 
 
 L XXX VIII. 
 
 Not with that vanity of shallow minds 
 Which apes the speech, and shames the noble truth 
 Of them whose pride is knowledge, > nor of Youth 
 The dazzling, dear mirage, that never finds 
 Itself o ertaken, but with trust in fame, 
 As knowing fame, and owning now the pure 
 And humble will which makes achievement sure, 
 I, Egon, here the Artist s title claim ! 
 
 L XXXIX. 
 
 The forms of Earth, the masks of Life, I see, 
 Yet see wherein they fail : with eager eyes 
 I hunt the wandering gleams of harmony, 
 The rarer apparitions which surprise 
 With hints of Beauty, fixing these alone 
 In wedded grace of form and tint and tone, 
 That so the thing, transfigured, shall arise 
 
 Beyond itself, and truly live in me. 
 10 
 
218 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XC. 
 
 And I shall paint, discerning where the line 
 Wavers between the Human and Divine, 
 Nor to the Real in servile bondage bound, 
 Nor scorning it: nor with supernal themes 
 Feeding the moods of o er-aspiring dreams, 
 (For mortal triumph is a god uncrowned,) 
 But by Proportion ruled, and by Repose, 
 And by the Soul supreme whence they arose. 
 
 xci. 
 
 Not clamoring for over-human bliss, 
 Yet now no more unhappy, not elate 
 As one exalted o er the level state 
 Of these ungifted lives, yet strong in this, 
 That I the sharpest stab and sweetest kiss 
 Have tasted, suffered, I can stand and wait, 
 Serene in knowledge, in obedience free, 
 The only master of my destiny ! 
 
THE PICTURE. 219 
 
 XCII. 
 
 And thus as in a clear, revealing noon 
 I live. So comes, sometimes, a mountain day: 
 A vague, uncertain, misty morn, and soon 
 Sharp-smiting sun, and winds and lightning s play, 
 A drear confusion, by the final crash 
 Dispersed, and ere meridian blown away ; 
 And all the peaks shine bare, the waters flash, 
 And Earth lies open to the golden ray! 
 
 xcni. 
 
 Lonely, perchance, but as these dark-browed hills 
 Are lonely, belted round with broader spheres 
 Of bluer world, my life its hope of peace fulfils 
 In poise of soul : the long, laborious years 
 Await me: closed my holy task, I go 
 To reaccept, beyond the Alpine snow, 
 The gage of glorious battle with my peers, 
 Not each of each, but of false art, the foe. 
 
220 THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 XCIV. 
 
 Once more, lovely, piteous, shaping Past, 
 I kiss thy lips : now let thy face be hid, 
 And this green turf above thy coffin-lid 
 Be turned to violets! The forests cast 
 Their shadowy arms across the quiet vale, 
 And all sweet sounds the coming rest foretell, 
 And earth takes glory as the sky grows pale, 
 So fond and beautiful the Day s farewell! 
 
 xcv. 
 
 Farewell, then, thou embosomed isle of peace 
 In restless waters ! Let the years increase 
 With unexpected blessing : thou shalt lie 
 As in her crystal shell the maiden lay, 
 Watched o er by weeping dwarfs, too fair to die, 
 Yet charmed from life: and there may come a day 
 Which crowns Desire with gift, and Art with truth, 
 And Love with bliss, and Life with wiser youth ! 
 
953 
 -3238. 
 P 
 
 T zz<& 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY