 | Poems by Julia C. R. Dorr |  |
455
IN A GALLERY
(ANTWERP, 1891)
The Virgin floating on the silver moon;
Madonna Mary with her holy child;
Pale Christs on shuddering crosses lifted high;
Sweet angel faces, bending from the blue;
Saints rapt from earth in ecstasy divine,
And martyrs all unmindful of their pain;
Bold, mail clad knights; fair ladyes whom they loved;
Brown fisher-boys and maidens; harvest-fields,
Where patient women toiled; with here and there
The glint of summer skies and summer seas,
And the red glow of humble, household fires!
Madonna Mary with her holy child;
Pale Christs on shuddering crosses lifted high;
Sweet angel faces, bending from the blue;
Saints rapt from earth in ecstasy divine,
And martyrs all unmindful of their pain;
Bold, mail clad knights; fair ladyes whom they loved;
Brown fisher-boys and maidens; harvest-fields,
Where patient women toiled; with here and there
The glint of summer skies and summer seas,
And the red glow of humble, household fires!
Breathless I stood and silent, even as one
Who, seeing all, sees nothing. Then a face
Down the long gallery drew me as a star;
A winsome, beckoning face, with bearded lips
Just touched with dawning laughter, and clear eyes
That kept their own dear secret, smiling still
With a soft challenge. Dark robes lost in shade,
Laces at throat and wrist, an ancient chair,
And a long, slender hand whose fingers held
Loosely a parchment scroll—and that was all.
Yet from those high, imperial presences,
Those lofty ones uplifted from dear earth
With all its loves and longings, back I turned
Again and yet again, lured by the smile
That called me like a voice, “Come hither, friend!”
Who, seeing all, sees nothing. Then a face
Down the long gallery drew me as a star;
A winsome, beckoning face, with bearded lips
Just touched with dawning laughter, and clear eyes
That kept their own dear secret, smiling still
With a soft challenge. Dark robes lost in shade,
Laces at throat and wrist, an ancient chair,
And a long, slender hand whose fingers held
Loosely a parchment scroll—and that was all.
Yet from those high, imperial presences,
Those lofty ones uplifted from dear earth
With all its loves and longings, back I turned
456
That called me like a voice, “Come hither, friend!”
“Simon de Vos,” thus saith the catalogue,
And “Painted by himself.”
Three hundred years
Thou hast been dust and ashes. I who write
And they who read, we know another world
From that thine eyes looked out on. Wouldst thou smile,
Even as here thou smilest, if to-day
Thou wert still of us? O, thou joyous one,
Whose light, half-mocking laughter hath outlived
So much earth held more precious, let thy lips
Open and answer me! Whence was it born,
The radiance of thy tender, sparkling face?
What manner of man wert thou? For the books
Of the long generations do not tell!
Art thou a name, a smile, and nothing more?
What dreams and visions hadst thou? Other men
Would pose as heroes; would go grandly down
To coming ages in the martyr's rôle;
Or, if perchance they're poets, set their woes
To wailing music, that the world may count
Their heart-throbs in the chanting of a song.
Immortal thou, by virtue of one smile!
And “Painted by himself.”
Three hundred years
Thou hast been dust and ashes. I who write
And they who read, we know another world
From that thine eyes looked out on. Wouldst thou smile,
Even as here thou smilest, if to-day
Thou wert still of us? O, thou joyous one,
Whose light, half-mocking laughter hath outlived
So much earth held more precious, let thy lips
Open and answer me! Whence was it born,
The radiance of thy tender, sparkling face?
What manner of man wert thou? For the books
Of the long generations do not tell!
Art thou a name, a smile, and nothing more?
What dreams and visions hadst thou? Other men
Would pose as heroes; would go grandly down
To coming ages in the martyr's rôle;
Or, if perchance they're poets, set their woes
To wailing music, that the world may count
Their heart-throbs in the chanting of a song.
Immortal thou, by virtue of one smile!
| Poems by Julia C. R. Dorr | |