Classic Poem

How was it that he knew it? ay, or where
Beholding an immortal in the air
Fixed he for aye, with swift touch unafraid,
That vision of the vision of a maid,
Whose hands are dropped, whose glowing eyes aspire
To some half-seen concent and heavenly quire,
While at her sacred feet forgotten lie
The useless tools of mortal minstrelsy?

True type of Art, which never long content
Can feed her flame with song or instrument,
Still from the bright supernal dream must draw
Light on her brows, and language, and a law,
If she her glorious message would renew,
Live her great life, and make the picture true,
Where stand that musical sweet maid anear
Saint and evangelist and sage and seer;
They watch Cecilia's eyes, but not for them
Opens on earth the heaven's Jerusalem.

Thou whom with thrills, like the first thrills that stir
In a girl's heart when Love is waking her,
With set of soul like the blind strength that sways
Beneath the moon's clear face the watery ways,
God from a child has chosen and set apart
For this one priesthood and last shrine of Art,
See thou maintain thy calling; take no heed
Of such as tell thee there is little need
Of beauty on the earth till peace be here,
That, till some true sun make the world less drear,
All vainly flush in thy thin air withdrawn
Auroral streamers of the untimely dawn.

They err; no other way as yet is known
With God's dim purpose to unite our own,
Except for each to follow as he can
The central impulse that has made him man,
Live his true self, and find his work and rest
In toil or pleasure where that self is best.

And hast thou chosen then? canst thou endure
The purging change of frost and calenture;
Accept the sick recoil, the weary pain
Of senses heightened, keener nerves and brain —
Suffer and love, love much and suffer long —
And live thro' all, and at the last be strong?
For hard the Aonian heights, and far and few
Their starry memories who have won thereto;
Who to the end loved love, who still the same
Followed lifelong the lonely road to fame;
And fame they found, with so great heart had they
Traversed that open unfrequented way.
Have courage; follow; yet no heart have I,
O soul elect, thy pains to prophesy,
Loth to myself to speak them, loth to know
That creatures born for love are born for woe.

Ay, if all else be spared thee, none the less
Enough, enough to bear is loneliness —
The hope that still, till hope with days be done,
Must seek the perfect friend and find not one;
Not one of all whom thine eyes' mastering flame
At will enkindles and at will can tame; —
Not one, O woman, of men strong and free
Whom thy mere presence makes the slaves of thee,
Yet thy king comes not, and the golden door
To thy heart's heart is shut for evermore.

Then oft thy very pulse shall sink away
Sick with the length of disenchanted day,
And after midnight, when the moon looks cold
On lawn and skies grey-azure and grey-gold,
So soft a passion to thy heart shall creep,
To change the dreamful for the dreamless sleep,
That turning round on that unrestful gloom
And peopled silence of thy lonely room,
Thou shalt need all the strength that God can give
Simply to live, my friend, simply to live.

Thou in that hour rejoice, since only thus
Can thy proud heart grow wholly piteous,
Thus only to the world thy speech can flow
Charged with the sad authority of woe
Since no man nurtured in the shade can sing
To a true note our psalm of conquering;
Warriors must chant it, whom our own eyes see
Red from the battle and more bruised than we,
Men who have borne the worst, have known the whole,
Have felt the last abeyance of the soul,
Low in the dust with rigid face have lain,
Self-scorned, self-spoiled, self-hated, and self-slain.

Since all alike we bear, but all apart,
One human anguish hidden at the heart,
All with eyes faint, with hopes that half endure,
Seek in the vault our vanished Cynosure,
And strain our helpless oarage, and essay
Thro' flood and fire the innavigable way.

In such dark places truth lies hid, and still
Man's wisdom comes on man against his will,
And his stern sibyl, ere her tale she tell,
Shows the shapes coiling at the gate of hell.

Such be thy sorrows, yet methinks for them
Thine Art herself has help and requiem;
Ah, when some painter, God-encompassed,
Finds the pure passion, lives among the dead, —
When angel eyes regarding thee enthral
Thy spirit in the light angelical,
And heaven and hope and all thy memories seem
Mixed with their being in a lovely dream, —
What place for anger? what to thee is this
That foe and friend judge justly or amiss?
No man can help or harm thee; far away
Their voices sound and like thin air are they;
Thou with the primal Beauty art alone,
And tears forgotten and a world thine own.

How oft Fate's sharpest blows shall leave thee strong
With some re-risen ecstasy of song!
How oft the unimagined message bound
In great sonatas and a stormy sound
Shall seize thee and constrain thee, and make thee sure
That this is true, and this , and these endure, —
Being at the root of all things, lying low,
Being Life, and Love, and God has willed it so.

Ah, strange the bond that in one great life binds
All master-moments of all master-minds!
Strange the one clan that years nor wars destroy,
The undispersed co-heritage of joy!
Strange that howe'er the sundering ages roll,
From age to age shall soul encounter soul,
Across the dying times, the world's dim roar,
Speak each with each, and live for evermore!
So have I seen in some deep wood divine
The dark and silvery stems of birch and pine;
Apart they sprang, rough earth between them lay
Tangled with brambles and with briars, but they
Met at their summits, and a rushing breeze
Inlocked the topmost murmur of the trees.

If only thou to thine own self couldst be
As kind as God and Nature are to thee!
They lade thy bark for nought, they pile thereon
With vain largess the golden cargason,
If with thy royal joys not yet content
Thou needs must lavish all, till all be spent,
If thou wilt change for hurrying loves that die
Thy strength, thine art, thine immortality, —
If thou wilt see thy sweet soul burned like myrrh
Before such gods as have no gift for her.

For even when once was God well pleased to shed
His thousand glories on a single head,
Amid our baffled lives and struggles dim,
To make one fair and all fair things for him —
Ah, what avail the eyes, the heart of flame,
The angel nature in the angel name?
Amid his fadeless art he fades away
Fair as his pictures but more frail than they,
Leaves deathless shrines, wherein sweet spirits dwell,
But not, not yet, the soul of Raphael.

Yet there are lives that mid the trampling throng
With their prime beauty bloom at evensong,
Souls that with no confusing flutter rise,
Spread their wings once, and sail in Paradise,
Hearts for whom God has judged it best to know
Only by hearsay sin and waste and woe,
Bright to come hither and to travel hence
Bright as they came, and wise in innocence;
So simply fair, so brave and unbeguiled,
Set Christ among the twelve the wiser child.
Wilt thou forget? forget not; keep apart
A certain faithful silence in the heart;
Speak to no friend thereof, and rare and slow
Let thine own thoughts to that their treasure go: —
Ay, an unconscious look, a broken tone,
A soft breath near thee timing with thine own,
These are thy treasures; dearer these to thee
Than the whole store of lifelong memory;
Dearer than joys and passions, for indeed
Those are blown blossoms, this the single seed,
And life is winter for it, death is spring,
And God the sun and heaven the harvesting.

Oh would that life and strength and spirit and song
Could come so flowing, could endure so long,
As might suffice a little at least to praise
The charm and glory of these latter days —
To let the captive thoughts a moment fly
That rise unsummoned and unspoken die!
Oh were I there when oft in some still place
Imagined music flushes in the face,
And silent and sonorous, to and fro,
Thro' the raised head the marching phrases flow!
Were mine the fame, when all the air is fire
With light and life and beauty and desire,
When one, when one thro' all the electric throng
Hurtles the jewel arrows of her song, —
Then crashed from tier on tier, from hand and tongue,
The ringing glory makes an old world young!
O marvel, that deep-hid in earth should lie
So many a seed and source of harmony,
Which age on age have slept, and in an hour
Surge in a sea and flame into a flower;
Which are a mystery; which having wist
From his great heart the master-melodist
Strikes till the strong chords tremble and abound
With tyrannous reversion of sweet sound,
Till bar on bar, till quivering string on string,
Break from their maker, are alive and sing,
With force for ever on all hearts to roll
Wave after wave the ocean of his soul!

Yet ah how feeble, ah how faint and low
The organ peals, the silver trumpets blow!
Alas, the glorious thoughts which never yet
Have found a sound in fugue or canzonet,
Nor can the pain of their delight declare
With magic of sweet figures and blue air!
Oh could one once by grace of God disclose
The heart's last sigh, the secret of the rose!
But once set free the soul, and breathe away
Life in the light of one transcendent day!

Not thus has God ordained it; nay, but He
To silent hearts is present silently;
He waits till in thee perish pride and shame,
Sense of thyself, and all thy thoughts of fame;
Then when thy task is over, His begun,
He leads thy soul where all the Arts are one —
Leads to His shrine, and has of old unfurled
To chosen eyes the wonder of the world.
Then let no life but His, no love be near,
Only in thought be even the dearest dear!
No sound or touch must kindle or control
This mounting joy, this sabbath of the soul:
He gives a lonely rapture; ay, as now
From this dark height and Sanminiato's brow,
Watching the beautiful ensanguined day
From Bellosguardo fade and Fiesole, —
Oh look how bridge and river, and dome and spire
Become one glory in the rose-red fire,
Till starlit Arno thro' the vale shall shine
And sweep to sea the roar of Apennine!
This is the spirit's worship: even so
I ween that in a dream and long ago,
Wearing together in her happy hour
The fruit of life and life's enchanting flower,
Herself, alone, essential and divine,
Came his own Florence to the Florentine,
And lily-sceptred in his vision stood
A city like the soul of womanhood.