 | The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield |  |
Before the image—(wrought by Phidias, when
His faithless country unto rival realms
Banished his genius)—of the supreme Jove,
The Præsul paused, and with adoring zeal
Cast incense on the altar; and soft wreaths
Of perfumed vapour round the eagle's beak,
The lifted sceptre and most godlike brow,
(The artist's mind was the sole deity)
Curled as in homage, and one blended voice
Burst from the thousands—“Supreme Jove is God!”
Then all the priests from every fane and all
The acolytes and soldiers incense flung,
And the proud statue proudly seemed to smile.
Next, bent and trembling, blind and dumb with fear,
A Christian came (from noisome catacombs
Dragged forth to prove his feebleness of faith,)
Like the great Pisan, who from midnight heavens
Could summon the eternal stars and fill
His angel spirit with their glories, yet
Abjured, in fear, before his bigot foes,
All the magnificence of thought, and knelt,
A hoar apostate, in the dust, to win
The lingering torture of a few sad hours,
And live—a monument of mind dethroned!
Onward he came with tottering childhood's step,
And with a face to all but terror dead.
He loved the light, adored the truth, yet dared
Meet not the perils it revealed; and now
He clung unto the altar and gasped out
His panic breath, and gazed beseeching round
In utter horror's wilderment, and groped
Amid the shrine lights for the frankincense,
With quivering fingers hurriedly; but Fear
Had quenched soul, feeling, sense—and, as his hand
Moved o'er the marble with a mindless aim,
And the wild pantings of his bosom spread
Hues ghastlier than death's along his cheek,
A stern centurion, with a frown of scorn
And sickened pity, from the censer took
The idol's odour and upon the palm
Of the apostate threw it with a curse;
And ere the lapse of thought, his worship flashed
On the stern aspect of the demon god!
And, onward borne triumphantly, he passed
To meet, through every hour of haunted time,
Derision for denial of his Lord!
His faithless country unto rival realms
Banished his genius)—of the supreme Jove,
The Præsul paused, and with adoring zeal
136
Of perfumed vapour round the eagle's beak,
The lifted sceptre and most godlike brow,
(The artist's mind was the sole deity)
Curled as in homage, and one blended voice
Burst from the thousands—“Supreme Jove is God!”
Then all the priests from every fane and all
The acolytes and soldiers incense flung,
And the proud statue proudly seemed to smile.
Next, bent and trembling, blind and dumb with fear,
A Christian came (from noisome catacombs
Dragged forth to prove his feebleness of faith,)
Like the great Pisan, who from midnight heavens
Could summon the eternal stars and fill
His angel spirit with their glories, yet
Abjured, in fear, before his bigot foes,
All the magnificence of thought, and knelt,
A hoar apostate, in the dust, to win
The lingering torture of a few sad hours,
And live—a monument of mind dethroned!
Onward he came with tottering childhood's step,
And with a face to all but terror dead.
He loved the light, adored the truth, yet dared
Meet not the perils it revealed; and now
He clung unto the altar and gasped out
His panic breath, and gazed beseeching round
In utter horror's wilderment, and groped
Amid the shrine lights for the frankincense,
With quivering fingers hurriedly; but Fear
Had quenched soul, feeling, sense—and, as his hand
Moved o'er the marble with a mindless aim,
And the wild pantings of his bosom spread
Hues ghastlier than death's along his cheek,
A stern centurion, with a frown of scorn
And sickened pity, from the censer took
The idol's odour and upon the palm
Of the apostate threw it with a curse;
And ere the lapse of thought, his worship flashed
137
And, onward borne triumphantly, he passed
To meet, through every hour of haunted time,
Derision for denial of his Lord!
| The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield | |