University of Virginia Library

There fell a vision to Praxiteles:
Watching thro' drowsy lids the loitering seas
That lay caressing with white arms of foam
The sleeping marge of his Ionian home.
He saw great Aphrodite standing near,
Knew her, at last, the Beautiful he had sought
With lifelong passion, and in love and fear
Into unsullied stone the vision wrought.

Far other was the form that Cnidos gave
To senile Rome, no longer free or brave,—
The Medicean, naked like a slave.
The Cnidians built her shrine
Of creamy ivory fine;
Most costly was the floor
Of scented cedar, and from door
Was looped to carven door
Rich stuff of Tyrian purple, in whose shade
Her glistening shoulders and round limbs outshone,
Milk-white as lilies in a summer moon.
Here honey-hearted Greece to worship came,
And on her altar leaped a turbid flame.
The quickened blood ran dancing to its doom,
And lip sought trembling lip in that rich gloom.

But the island people of Cos, by the salt main
From Persia's touch kept clean,
Chose for their purer shrine amid the seas
That grander vision of Praxiteles.
Long ages after, sunken in the ground
Of sea-girt Melos, wondering shepherds found
The marred and dinted copy which men name
Venus of Milo, saved to endless fame.

Before the broken marble, on a day,
There came a worshiper: a slanted ray
Struck in across the dimness of her shrine
And touched her face as to a smile divine;
For it was like the worship of a Greek
At her old altar. Thus I heard him speak:—

Men call thee Love: is there no holier name
Than hers, the foam-born, laughter-loving dame?
Nay, for there is than love no holier name:
All words that pass the lips of mortal men
With inner and with outer meaning shine;
An outer gleam that meets the common ken,
An inner light that but the few divine.
Thou art the love celestial, seeking still
The soul beneath the form; the serene will;
The wisdom, of whose deeps the sages dream;
The unseen beauty that doth faintly gleam
In stars, and flowers, and waters where they roll;
The unheard music whose faint echoes even
Make whosoever hears a homesick soul
Thereafter, till he follow it to heaven.

Larger than mortal woman I see thee stand,
With beautiful head bent forward steadily,
As if those earnest eyes could see
Some glorious thing far off, to which thy hand
Invisibly stretched onward seems to be.
From thy white forehead's breadth of calm, the hair
Sweeps lightly, as a cloud in windless air.
Placid thy brows, as that still line at dawn
Where the dim hills along the sky are drawn,
When the last stars are drowned in deeps afar.
Thy quiet mouth—I know not if it smile,
Or if in some wise pity thou wilt weep,—
Little as one may tell, some summer morn,
Whether the dreamy brightness is most glad,
Or wonderfully sad,—
So bright, so still thy lips serenely sleep;
So fixedly thine earnest eyes the while,
As clear and steady as the morning star,
Their gaze upon that coming glory keep.

Thy garment's fallen folds
Leave beautiful the fair, round breast
In sacred loveliness; the bosom deep
Where happy babe might sleep;
The ample waist no narrowing girdle holds,
Where daughters slim might come to cling and rest,
Like tendriled vines against the plane-tree pressed.
Around thy firm, large limbs and steady feet
The robes slope downward, as the folded hills
Slope round the mountain's knees, when shadow fills
The hollow cañons, and the wind is sweet
From russet oat-fields and the ripening wheat.

From our low world no gods have taken wing;
Even now upon our hills the twain are wandering:
The Medicean's sly and servile grace,
And the immortal beauty of thy face.
One is the spirit of all short-lived love
And outward, earthly loveliness:
The tremulous rosy morn in her mouth's smile,
The sky her laughing azure eyes above;
And, waiting for caress,
Lie bare the soft hill-slopes, the while
Her thrilling voice is heard
In song of wind and wave, and every flitting bird.
Not plainly, never quite herself she shows;
Just a swift glance of her illumined smile
Along the landscape goes;
Just a soft hint of singing, to beguile
A man from all his toil;
Some vanished gleam of beckoning arm, to spoil
A morning's task with longing wild and vain.
Then if across the parching plain
He seek her, she with passion burns
His heart to fever, and he hears
The west wind's mocking laughter when he turns,
Shivering in mist of ocean's sullen tears.
It is the Medicean: well I know
The arts her ancient subtlety will show;
The stubble-fields she turns to ruddy gold;
The empty distance she will fold
In purple gauze; the warm glow she has kissed
Along the chilling mist:
Cheating and cheated love that grows to hate
And ever deeper loathing, soon or late.

Thou, too, O fairer spirit, walkest here
Upon the lifted hills:
Wherever that still thought within the breast
The inner beauty of the world hath moved;
In starlight that the dome of evening fills;
On endless waters rounding to the west:
For them who thro' that beauty's veil have loved
The soul of all things beautiful the best.
For lying broad awake, long ere the dawn,
Staring against the dark, the blank of space
Opens immeasurably, and thy face
Wavers and glimmers there and is withdrawn.
And many days, when all one's work is vain,
And life goes stretching on, a waste gray plain,
With even the short mirage of morning gone,
No cool breath anywhere, no shadow nigh
Where a weary man might lay him down and die,
Lo! thou art there before me suddenly,
With shade as if a summer cloud did pass,
And spray of fountains whispering to the grass.
Oh, save me from the haste and noise and heat
That spoil life's music sweet:
And from that lesser Aphrodite there—
Even now she stands
Close as I turn, and, O my soul, how fair!
Nay, I will heed not thy white beckoning hands,
Nor thy soft lips like the curled inner leaf
In a rosebud's breast, kissed languid by the sun,
Nor eyes like liquid gleams where waters run.
Yea, thou art beautiful as morn;
And even as I draw nigh
To scoff, I own the loveliness I scorn.
Farewell, for thou hast lost me: keep thy train
Of worshipers; me thou dost lure in vain:
The inner passion, pure as very fire,
Burns to light ash the earthlier desire.

O greater Aphrodite, unto thee
Let me not say farewell. What would Earth be
Without thy presence? Surely unto me
A lifelong weariness, a dull, bad dream.
Abide with me, and let thy calm brows beam
Fresh hope upon me every amber dawn,
New peace when evening's violet veil is drawn.
Then, tho' I see along the glooming plain
The Medicean's waving hand again,
And white feet glimmering in the harvest-field,
I shall not turn, nor yield;
But as heaven deepens, and the Cross and Lyre
Lift up their stars beneath the Northern Crown,
Unto the yearning of the world's desire
I shall be 'ware of answer coming down;
And something, when my heart the darkness stills,
Shall tell me, without sound or any sight,
That other footsteps are upon the hills;
Till the dim earth is luminous with the light
Of the white dawn, from some far-hidden shore,
That shines upon thy forehead evermore.