University of Virginia Library

The Spirit of the Beautiful shines down
Upon our work-day world in fitful gleams—
Now here, now there, in crowded, busy town,
Or quiet country home, her radiance streams
Through the dim atmosphere of commonplace,
On some grave child, with shy and serious face,
And eyes too thoughtful for his tender years,
Silent, with lifted gaze contemplative,
As listening to a voice no other hears—
And brain wherein strange dreams and fancies live
Whom, by some mystic birth-mark, seen alone
Of her clear eyes, she knows to be her own,
And claims him for her chosen minister,—
The rapt exponent of a holier creed
Than bigotry or worldliness can preach—
Her starry-eyed evangelist, who brings
Tidings of better things;
Whose vital presence has a power to stir
Our stagnant lives, hemmed in by toil and trade—
Her eloquent, many-tongued interpreter,
Earnest and unafraid—
Whose mission is to teach
To doubting souls their own divinity,
And lead them up to her;
To make men conscious of a higher need
Than dainty food and raiment can supply,
Than wealth can fill, or fame can satisfy;
To build new temples on her sacred height
And keep her fainting altar-fire alight
Amid the stifling air
Of poverty, the heavy damps of care,
The miasms born of selfishness and greed,
Which vex and menace so
Its purifying glow;
To catch the music dropt from loftier spheres
And make it audible to other ears,
In strains of song whose ringing notes shall chime
Far down the slopes of time,—
To plant in earnest hearts the precious seeds
Which grow to glorious deeds;
Or, as her most miraculous messenger,
To make the sullen canvas smile and live,
Or the cold marble almost breathe and stir.

So, setting him apart to do her will,
She makes alive and visible to him
The deities of her elysium,
Visions to which all alien eyes are dim;
And leads him on, by unknown ways, until
He, her ordained apostle, has become
A glad partaker of her highest joy—
A life-long dweller on enchanted ground;
Her prophet and her priest, inspired and crowned
An artist, from a simple dreaming boy.

So was he chosen, set apart and led,
Whose genius first made visible in clay
The embodied grace that charms our eyes to-day.
Is it not beautiful? This youth, who seems
This moment newly dead,
And scarce beyond the reach of happy dreams;
Whose gleaming limbs, like a Greek god's of old
In symmetry and perfectness of mould,
Are not yet wholly cold
And settled into rigid lines of death,
But wearing still the trace
Of life's elastic grace;
Wooed by the buoyant water, which in vain
Remorseful for its cruelty, would fain
Lift him to light, and warmth, and love again,
Ere yet upon the surface overhead,
The bubble breaks that holds his latest breath.

The story is two-fold,
By this mute marble eloquently told—
The pulseless Diver on his bed of rock
Beneath the tropic wave
That all his life, he had not feared to brave—
Lying in peace asleep,
After his struggle with the treacherous deep;
Dead, without wrench or shock,
Or anguish of farewells;
Dead, with the precious shells,
The pearls for which his strong young life was sold,
Almost within his hold.

For like the Diver dead before his time,
So did the sculptor, whose most patient skill
Made the insensate stone obey his will,
Die in the fullness of his youthful prime,
When Fortune smiled, and Fame had just begun
To own him for her son,
And all he most desired on earth was won.

One moment let all kindly spirits pause
Before this lovely type of “easeful death,”
Of fearless daring in the losing cause
Of pearls too dearly bought,
In purest marble wrought—
And give the space of one regretful breath,
One gracious tender thought
To that fine ardent soul whose dream it was.

Does not this marble dream
Almost prophetic seem
Of his own strivings, and his early doom?
When life was in its bloom,
Like this young Diver, strong of will and limb,
Fearless he breasted the opposing tide
Of adverse fate and hindering circumstance—
For Fortune passed aside
And did not dower him with her golden glance;
His chosen road rose steep, and rough, and dim,
Darkened by crowding doubts, austere and grim;
Small sympathy he found
In the prosaic world that hedged him round,
And in his youth, the way was hard for him.

While yet he was a child
Among his schoolmates, he was seen to be
Peculiar, quaint, and different from them all—
Thoughtful, and grave, and mild,
Less rude than they, more gentle and refined,
More merciful and kind,
And given to “preaching,” as they used to call
His swift rebukes of thoughtless cruelty
And harsh, coarse words and ways;
And, thinking thus to touch his cheek with shame
They, jeering, named him “the Apostle Paul”;
But what was given in scorn, he took in pride,
And thenceforth all his days
Honored and kept the name,
And to full many a noble heart, became
Paul the Beloved—till his life-time's end
A comrade true and tried,
With ready sympathies most warm and wide—
A fearless champion, and a loyal friend.

One day his boyish mates, released from school,
Paused on the bridge, and he among the throng,
Gravely reproved some action rough or wrong,
Or some unseemly speech,—
Whereat they laughed, and said in ridicule
“Hear the Apostle preach!
He tries to be, and will be if he can,
Something much better than a common man.”

But smiling at the sneer,
He said—“Now all of you attend and hear;—
I say I would plunge down
Into this rolling river here, and drown,
If I believed, despite my wish and plan,
That I should only be a common man—
To drudge from year to year in sun and rain
With endless toil and pain,
And no ambition but the hope of gain—
No higher motive than to eat and sleep,
Like the poor beasts that graze, the worms that creep—
No hope of ending more than I began—
No—I will never be a common man.”

Courageously he met
The trials which beset
His early years—and faced and conquered each;
And when the shining triumphs of success
With blessings numberless,
Life's richest pearls, were all within his reach,
And fortune sought him to reward and bless,—
Just at the fruitage of his long endeavor,
When every cloud had vanished from his sky—
The restless soul wore through
Its fragile casket of mortality;
The feeble frame gave up the unequal strife—
Fate snapped the slender silver cord of life,
And while there yet remained so much to do,
The marvellous fingers ceased their work forever.

Alas! for it had labored long and well,
That sensitive hand that owned a wizard's spell
To conjure lifeless stone to loveliest shapes;
The Presser of the Grapes—
The fair Undine, fresh from her fountain-bowl,
Saddened by her new burden of a soul—
Who left, mistakenly,
Her happy world of waters, to discover
How cruel-false the love is, which desires,
Pursues, and wins, and tires;
The gentle Una with her lion lover
Bearing her proudly on his tawny back;
Jacob's beloved son,
His pride, his youngest one,
Fair Benjamin, who, pausing on the track
To Egypt with his brethren—while surprise
Looked from his innocent eyes,
Beheld the silver cup within his sack;
And she, the lovely saint of charity,
The dear Elizabeth of Hungary,
Whose kirtle full of bread
Changed into sweetest roses, white and red—
All these, and more, obeyed that beckoning hand
And woke at his command.

How sad and strange that thus the artist's thought
Outlasts the brain that planned, the hand that wrought!
That mighty Cæsar's bust
Remains when he, and all he ruled, are dust!

Ah, who may guess how much
Of undreamed beauty and surpassing grace,
How many a wondrous form and perfect face,
Unwarmed by daylight's kiss
Lie yet unquarried in the fastnesses
Of fair Carrara's hills,
Sealed deep within their rocky chrysalis,
And waiting vainly the awakening thrills
Of his magnetic touch?
And will some art-disciple yet unborn,
With shining eyes anointed like his own,
And hand like his in miracle-working power,
At the appointed hour
Perceive them, fettered in imprisoning stone,
And lead them forth to meet the welcoming morn?
Or will that star of genius never rise,
And jealous nature keep unturned the page
Meant only for his eyes,
And let those radiant visions sleep unknown
All undistinguished from their native stone,
Until there comes an end of mysteries,
And the great globe itself wears out with age?

Most fitly rests his best creation here,
To keep his memory, through many a year,
Living, and fresh, and sweet;
Here in this pleasant place—this loved retreat
To which his failing feet,
Weary with foreign wandering, turned at last,
When his brief day of toil was overpast—
The city which, though widely he might roam,
He still held dear, and loved to call his home.
Gladly he left the charmed Italian shore
To walk its ways once more,—
Eager again to greet
Each well-known face and dear familiar street,
As a tired child comes, when night's shadows lower,
Back to its mother's door.

The thoughtful soul may gather wisdom hence;
Who dives for pearls must pay their dangerous price;
All triumphs have their hard equivalents;
And though each gain exacts its sacrifice,
All worthy effort wins its recompense;
Calm has its perils, too, as well as storm,
And death is cold, although the wave be warm.
Faint hearts may win new hope and confidence,
Learning from this brief life-experience
That much may be achieved by one brave soul
Determined and intense,
Which seeks a lofty goal,
And, spurning circumstance's harsh control,
And smiling at the shadows it may meet,
Keeps its ideal still intact and whole;
Despite discouragement, defies defeat,
And holds its purpose high, and pure, and sweet;
That even a life cut off before its time,
Blighted by fell disease in early prime,
May not be fruitless pain;
For if the mortal has not lived in vain
Who makes, as his one gain
For the wide world's great store,
Two blades of grass grow where one grew before,
Then surely has his life been something worth,
Who gave this added beauty to the earth;
Surely his name is worthy of renown
Whose toil achieved for his beloved town
This treasure—this rare jewel for its crown;
This lovely record of his high endeavor
Amid death's gathering shades still strong and brave,—
A flower of genius, blooming on a grave.

Long may it here repose,
Beloved and valued long,
In this fair temple, reared and set apart
For Letters, sister-deity of Art—
(Twin-genii they, whose pathways seldom sever)—
By one whose generous heart
With fealty true and strong,
Burns incense at the kindred shrine of Song,—
To tell its tale of help and hope to those
Disheartened by adversities and woes,
And bear his name to children's children down;
“A thing of beauty,” and “a joy forever!”