Classic Poem

Suggested by Miss Stebbins's statue of the Lotus-Eater.

A MAIDEN in her summer bloom,
Whose heart had neither felt love's thorn
Nor yet rejected love with scorn,
Lamented thus her sex's doom: —

" Ah me! whose gaze dare not engage
In mystic tilt with belted knight,
Nor venture e'en in sport to plight
A glance to squire or beardless page;

" Exposed to cold and sordid eyes,
Like Georgian nymph in Eastern mart,
Who only may her hand impart
To him whose gold her beauty buys;

" Whilst — like the incandescent blush,
That with feigned warmth doth tantalise
Earth's breast congealed 'neath Arctic skies —
Electric thrills my being flush;

" As though within me gleamed a fire
Unfed — a glowing, not a burning —
A coming thirst, a nascent yearning,
A subtle, nameless, vague desire.

" Ah! would my soul from Earth were free;
For, like the puzzled bird that flies
'Twixt fowler's net and serpent's eyes,
I dread my sex's destiny! "

An angel heard the maiden's sigh,
And gently led her spirit where
In dreams she saw a temple, fair
With chiselled forms not doomed to die: —

The brow of Jove, serene, august;
The breathing, almost blushing, frame
Of Psyche, whose ethereal name
The soul takes when it leaves the dust;

Apollo listening to his lyre;
Minerva softened by its strains;
And she within whose sea-born veins
For ever burns Love's unquenched fire;

The Graces three, the sacred Nine
Whose snowy brows and vestal hearts
Defied the Boy-God's flame-tipped darts;
And mortals more than half divine.

But when the maiden's slumber broke,
Those god-like shapes, through memory stealing
And Art's ideal world revealing,
To new resolves her soul awoke.

A roofless shrine deep in the glade,
Where leant, neglected, moss-bestained,
The marble god who there had reigned,
Hallowed her vow, with fervour made.

On bended knee: " The unwed Bride
Of Art divine henceforth I'll be;
And rear a spotless family,
With all a mother's love and pride.

" My travail thus shall realise,
Without a pang, her chastest joys;
In snowy marble shall my boys
Beneath my fostering hands arise.

" Since to their frames I may not give
The quickening pulses of my heart,
My soul its graces shall impart,
And in their stainless bodies live.

" Their snowy shapes, without defect,
Angelic beauty shall display;
No inborn sin of mortal clay
Shall envious eye in them detect. "

And as a form embalmed in song
Awakens to the music sweet
Which lulled it in its winding-sheet,
So did the maiden's touch, ere long,

Awake to life, with pious art,
The graceful phantom here congealed;
A Phaenix, though in snow revealed,
Out of the ashes of her heart.