 | A New Year's Eve, and Other Poems |  |
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ON A PORTRAIT
BY SPAGNOLETTO.
I
'Tis not the subject!—More than thisMy eye had loved to greet
Some quiet scene of past'ral bliss,
The Muses' calm retreat:
Or watch-tower, beetling o'er the sea:
Or broken bank, with scathed tree:
Or, yet more mildly sweet,
The matron majesty and grace
Of some Madonna's lovely face.
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II
Such is the beauty whose soft spellIs dearest to my heart:
On which thought most delights to dwell
In Nature or in Art;
Its gentle, fascinating power
To Sorrow's darker, colder hour
Brief sunshine can impart,
Wakening calm thoughts and feelings high
Which soar beyond mortality.
III
Yet much the genius would I prizeIn nobler form displayed,
Whose sterner, stronger energies
Are deeply here pourtrayed:
Whose power, like Rembrandt's, has imbued
With solemn grandeur, bold and rude,
And magic light and shade,
This portrait of the olden time,
Dim, sombre, shadowy, and sublime!
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IV
Not brightening tint, not mellowing tone,Thy mastery supply:
A higher charm is round thee thrown
By hoar antiquity;
In thee my musing thought reveres
The memory of revolving years,
Now passed for ever by!
Of them, of thee, how many a thought
With vague conjecture might be fraught.
V
Thrice fifty years, and more, hast thouTime's devastations dared,
And still that hand, and arm, and brow,
By age are unimpaired;
While he, whose master-hand first drew,
And gave to each its living hue,
Man's common lot hath shared:
His life a scanty span appears
Compared with thy protracted years.
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VI
But who wast thou?—that flask of wine,The uplifted tambourine,
Should speak a mood of joyaunce thine
Which loved the festive scene:
Yet no glad smile of humour gay
Is seen in sunny light to play
O'er thy stern, fearless mien,—
Projecting from its mass of shade
Laughter to chill, and mirth upbraid.
VII
A bandit, at his lonely feast?A monk within his cell,
From cloistered solitude released—
Art thou?—or, truth to tell,
Did Spagnoletto here design
To paint himself?—face, form like thine
Befit the artist well,
If in his works we rightly scan
The moods and passions of the man.
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VIII
But, be thou who thou may'st, declare,If thou canst find a tongue,
How time has passed with thee, and where?
In what far homes up-hung?
Hast thou e'er graced the trophied hall
Of wealth and grandeur, on whose wall
Bright lamps their lustre flung;
While thronged beneath, in rich array,
The young, the thoughtless, and the gay.
IX
Thus Fancy chronicles thy lot;Then thy sad fall pourtrays,
Borne from the castle to the cot;
There, by the wood-fire's blaze,
Now pale and dim, now proud and bright,
Striking some simple urchin's sight
With awe and mute amaze:—
And thence by Taste or Traffic's wile
Transplanted to our northern isle.
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X
Yet why should Fancy more make knownThe history of thy lot?
Or in an exhibition shown,
Or broker's stores forgot?
Who sold, who bought thee, unto me
Is but a vision, and to thee
I ween it matters not:—
Enough for me to feel thy power,
For thee to soothe my lonely hour.
| A New Year's Eve, and Other Poems | |