University of Virginia Library

Within a city quaint and old,
When reigned King Alcinor the Bold,
There dwelt a sculptor whose renown
With pride and wonder filled the town.
And yet he had not reached his prime;
The first warm glow of summer-time
Had but just touched his radiant face,
And moulded to a statelier grace
The stalwart form that trod the earth
As it had been of princely birth.
So fair, so strong, so brave was he,
With such a sense of mastery,
That Alcinor upon his throne
No kinglier gifts from life could own
Than those it brought from near and far
To the young sculptor, Valdemar!
Mayhap he was not rich—for Fame,
To lend its magic to his name,
Had outrun Fortune's swiftest pace
And conquered in the friendly race.
But a fair home was his, where bees
Hummed in the laden mulberry-trees;
Where cyclamens, with rosy flush,
Brightened the lingering twilight hush,
And the gladiolus' fiery plume
Mocked the red rose's brilliant bloom;
Where violet and wind-flower hid
The acacia's golden gloom amid;
Where starry jasmines climbed, and where,
Serenely calm, divinely fair,
Like a white lily, straight and tall,
The loveliest flower among them all,
His sweet young wife, Hermione,
Sang to the child upon her knee!

Here beauteous visions haunted him,
Peopling the shadows soft and dim;
Here the old gods around him cast
The glamour of their splendors past.
Jove thundered from the awful sky;
Proud Juno trod the earth once more;
Pale Isis, veiled in mystery,
Her smile of mystic meaning wore;
Apollo joyed in youth divine,
And Bacchus wreathed the fragrant vine.
Here chaste Diana, crescent-crowned,
With virgin footsteps spurned the ground;
Here rose fair Venus from the sea,
And that sad ghost, Persephone,
Wandered, a very shade of shades,
Amid the moonlit myrtle glades.
Nor they alone. The Heavenly Child,
The Holy Mother, meek and mild,
Angels on glad wing soaring free,
Pale, praying saints on bended knee,
Martyrs with palms, and heroes brave
Who for their guerdon won a grave,
Earth's laughing children, rosy sweet,
And the soul's phantoms, fair and fleet—
All these were with him night and day,
Charming the happy hours away!
Oh, who so rich as Valdemar?
What ill his joyous life can mar?
With home and glorious visions blest,
Glad in the work he loveth best!

But Love's clear eyes are quick to see;
And one fair spring, Hermione.
Sitting beneath her mulberry-tree
With her young children at her knee,
Saw Valdemar from day to day,
As one whose thoughts were far away,
With folded arms and drooping head
Pace the green aisles with silent tread;
Saw him stand moodily apart
With idle hands and brooding heart,
Or gaze at his still forms of clay,
Himself as motionless as they!
“O Valdemar!” she cried, “you bear
Some burden that I do not share!
I am your wife, your own true wife;
Shut me not out from heart and life!
Why brood you thus in silent pain?”
As shifts the changing weather-vane,
So came the old smile to his face,
Saluting her with courtly grace.
“Nay, nay, Hermione, not so!
No secret, bitter grief I know;
But, haunting all my dreams by night
And thoughts by day, one vision bright,
One nameless wonder, near me stands,
Claiming its birthright at my hands.
It hath your eyes, Hermione,
Your tender lips that smile for me;
It hath your perfect, stately grace,
The matchless beauty of your face.
But it hath more! for never yet
On brow of earthly mould was set
Such splendor and such light as streams
From this rare phantom of my dreams!”

Lightly she turned, and led him through
Under the jasmines wet with dew,
Into a wide, cool room, shut in
From the great city's whirl and din—
Then, smiling, touched a heap of clay.
“Dear idler, do thy work, I pray!
Thy radiant phantom lieth hid
The mould of centuries amid,
Waiting till thou shalt bid it rise
And live beneath the wondering skies!”

Then rose a hot flush to his cheek;
His stammering lips were slow to speak.
“Hermione,” he said at length,
As one who gathers up his strength,
“Hermione, my wife, I go
Far from thee on a journey slow
And long and perilous; for I know
Somewhere upon the earth there is
A finer, purer clay than this,
From which I'll mould a shape more fair
Than ever breathed in earthly air!
I go to seek it!”

“Ah!” she said,
With smiling lips, but tearful eyes,
Half lifted in a grieved surprise,
“How shall I then be comforted?
Not always do we find afar
The good we seek, my Valdemar!
This common, wayside clay thy hand
Hath been most potent to command.
Yet I—I will not bid thee stay.
Go, if thou must, and find thy clay!”

Then his long journeyings began,
And still his hope his steps outran.
O'er desert sands he came and went;
He crossed a mighty continent;
Plunged into forests dark and lone;
In jungles heard the panther's moan;
Climbed the far mountains' lofty heights;
Watched alien stars through weary nights;
While more than once, on trackless seas,
His white sails caught the eddying breeze.
Yet all his labor was for nought,
And never found he what he sought,
Or far or near. The finer clay
But mocked his eager search alway.

Ofttimes he came, with weary feet,
Back to the home so still and sweet
Where his fair wife, Hermione,
Dwelt with her children at her knee;
But never once his eager hand
Thrilled the mute clay with high command.
One day she spoke: “O Valdemar,
Cease from your wanderings wide and far!
Life is not long. Why waste it, then,
Chasing false fires through marsh and fen?
Mould your fair statue while you may;
High purpose sanctifies the clay.”

He answered her, “My dream must wait,
Fortune will aid me, soon or late!
Perhaps the clay I may not find—
But a strange tale is in the wind
Of an old man whose life has been
Shut up wild solitudes within
On Alpine mountains. He has found
What I have sought the world around.
A learnèd, godly man, he knows
How the full tide of being flows;
And he, in some mysterious way,
Makes, if he cannot find, the clay.
He will his secret share with me—
I go to him, Hermione!”

“But, Valdemar,” she cried, “time flies,
And while you dream, the vision dies!
And look! Our children suffer lack;
There is no coat for Claudio's back;
Theresa's little feet, unshod,
Are torn by shards on which they trod;
And Marcius cried but yesterday
When the lads mocked him at their play.
The very house is crumbling down;
The broken hearth-stone needs repair;
The roof is open to the air—
It wakes the laughter of the town!
O Valdemar! if you must go
Up to those trackless fields of snow,
Mould first from yonder common clay
Something to keep the wolf away—
A Virgin for some humble shrine,
A soldier clad in armor fine,
Or even such toys as Andrefels
To laughing, wondering children sells.”

“Now murmur not, Hermione,
But be thou patient,” answered he.
“Why mind the laughter of the town?
It cannot shake my fair renown!
A touch of hardship, now and then,
Will never harm our little men;
And as for this old, crumbling roof,
Let rude winds put it to the proof,
And fierce heats gnaw the hearth-stone! I
Surely the Land of Promise spy,
Where the fair vision of my dreams,
Clothed in transcendent beauty, gleams!
In its white hand it holdeth up
For us, my love, a brimming cup
Where wealth and fame and joy divine
Mingle in life's most sparkling wine.
Bid me God-speed, Hermione,
And kiss me, ere I go from thee!”

So on he sped, from day to day—
Past wheat-fields yellowing in the sun,
Where scarlet-coated poppies run,
Gay soldiers ready for the fray—
Past vineyards purpling on the hills,
Past sleeping lakes and dancing rills,
And homes like dovecotes nestling high
Midway between the earth and sky!
Then on he passed through valleys dim
Crowded with shadows gaunt and grim,
Up towering heights whence glaciers launch
Their swift-winged ships for seaward flight,
Or where, dread messenger of fright,
Sweeps down the awful avalanche!
And still upon the mountain side
To every man he met he cried,
“Where shall I find, oh! tell me where,
The hermit of this upper air,
Who Nature's inmost secret knows?”
And, pointing to the eternal snows,
Each man replied, with wagging head,
“Up yonder, somewhere, it is said.”

And that was all! O Valdemar!
Fly to thy desolate home afar,
Where wasted, worn, Hermione,
With her pale children at her knee,
Beside the broken hearth-stone weeps!

He finds her, smiling as she sleeps,
For night more tender is than day,
And softly wipes our tears away.
“Oh, wake, Hermione!” he cries,
As one whose spirit inly dies;
“Hear me confess that I have been
False to thee in my pride and sin!
God give me grace from this blest day
To do His work in common clay!”

Next morn, in humble, sweet content,
Into his studio he went,
Eager to test his willing hand,
And rule the clay with wise command.
But no fair wonder first he wrought,
No marvel of creative thought,
Not even a Virgin for a shrine,
Or soldier clad in armor fine—
Only such toys as Andrefels
To laughing, wondering children sells!

One day he knelt him gravely down
Beside the hearth-stone, rent and brown.
“And now, my patient wife,” said he,
“What can be done with this, we'll see.”
With straining arm and crimsoned face
He pried the mortar from its place,
Lifted the heavy stone aside,
And left a cavern yawning wide.
Oh, wondrous tale! At set of sun
The guerdon of his search was won;
And where his broken hearth-stone lay
He found at last the perfect clay!