 | Lectures on art, and poems |  |
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TO MY SISTER.
LINES SUGGESTED BY THE RECOLLECTION OF A LITTLE BIRD, CARVED BY THE WRITER, WHEN SIX YEARS OLD, OUT OF A GREEN STALK OF THE INDIAN CORN, AS A PARTING GIFT TO HIS SISTER.
'T is sad to think, of all the crowded Past,
How small a remnant in the memory lives!
A shadowy mass of shapes at random cast
Wide on a broken sea the image gives
Of most that we recall.
Yet, haply, not to all
That once have lived doth wayward Memory close
Her book of life,—or, rather, book of love;
For there, as quickened by some breath above,
The pure affections must for aye repose.
How small a remnant in the memory lives!
A shadowy mass of shapes at random cast
Wide on a broken sea the image gives
Of most that we recall.
Yet, haply, not to all
That once have lived doth wayward Memory close
Her book of life,—or, rather, book of love;
For there, as quickened by some breath above,
The pure affections must for aye repose.
And how the rudest toys by childhood wrought,—
The symbols of its love,—there live and grow
To classic forms, on which no after thought,
No learned toil, can with its skill bestow
A truer touch of Art,
To fix them in the heart!
Then not in vain the gift of little worth,
Thus shadowing to the soul the blessed truth,
That all things pure must needs immortal youth
Hold as their heritage, though born of Earth.
The symbols of its love,—there live and grow
To classic forms, on which no after thought,
No learned toil, can with its skill bestow
A truer touch of Art,
To fix them in the heart!
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Thus shadowing to the soul the blessed truth,
That all things pure must needs immortal youth
Hold as their heritage, though born of Earth.
And so, my Sister, doth that childish toy,
Which love for thee had shaped, still with me live;
The life imparted by the loving Boy
Is truer life than now his Art can give:
I see its emerald wing,
Nay, almost hear it sing!
And oft that little vegetable bird
Shall flit between us when we part again;
Its bright, perennial form shall skim the main,
A silent sign,—nor need an uttered word.
Which love for thee had shaped, still with me live;
The life imparted by the loving Boy
Is truer life than now his Art can give:
I see its emerald wing,
Nay, almost hear it sing!
And oft that little vegetable bird
Shall flit between us when we part again;
Its bright, perennial form shall skim the main,
A silent sign,—nor need an uttered word.
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