 | St. Augustine's Holiday and Other Poems |  |
146
PAINTING FOR TIME.
One sunny eventide,
At a great painter's side,
A maiden paced glad eyed.
Enchanted did she see
That glorious gallery.
Beauty and strength were there,
The heroic and the fair,
Faces superbly wrought
By the creative thought.
Happy she walk'd, and proud,
Yet something like a cloud
Just touch'd the maiden's brow.
Quoth he, “What thinkest thou?”
“Master,” she said, “this place
Is haunted with all grace.
There, where shafts falling late
Those forms irradiate,
Lo! as I gaze, they seem
To pass into a dream.
A dream—but, as men say,
Ere sea-frets gather grey,
While still is light to scan,
That stream Northumbrian,
The shadow of the spire,
And the autumn trees on fire
Look as real as the things
To our imaginings.
So gazing here I think,
As by that river's brink
Shadow and substance stand
Inverted by thy hand—
The shadows I and you,
They only fix'd and true,
They those alone who live,
And we insubstantive,
Yet on their features all
Whose semblance fills the hall
Why hath thy hand let fall
That wanness as of snow?
Master, I long to know.”
At a great painter's side,
A maiden paced glad eyed.
Enchanted did she see
That glorious gallery.
Beauty and strength were there,
The heroic and the fair,
Faces superbly wrought
By the creative thought.
Happy she walk'd, and proud,
Yet something like a cloud
Just touch'd the maiden's brow.
Quoth he, “What thinkest thou?”
“Master,” she said, “this place
Is haunted with all grace.
There, where shafts falling late
Those forms irradiate,
Lo! as I gaze, they seem
To pass into a dream.
A dream—but, as men say,
Ere sea-frets gather grey,
While still is light to scan,
That stream Northumbrian,
147
And the autumn trees on fire
Look as real as the things
To our imaginings.
So gazing here I think,
As by that river's brink
Shadow and substance stand
Inverted by thy hand—
The shadows I and you,
They only fix'd and true,
They those alone who live,
And we insubstantive,
Yet on their features all
Whose semblance fills the hall
Why hath thy hand let fall
That wanness as of snow?
Master, I long to know.”
“Heed not what now appears.
In the abyss of years;
In the unapparent morn
Of centuries unborn,
Something more fair and fine
Than thou canst now divine;
Some magic colour thrown
On the white monotone,
Some unimagined dye
Under the distant sky
Of the futurity,
Shall yet unlighted eyes
Transcendently surprise.
Say not—this colouring pale
Is but of small avail.
The hues thou dost create
Are too immaculate.
Flood them with warmer flood,
Paint with more passionate blood,
As with red grape's rich juice
The whiteness interfuse.
Men generations hence
Shall thank my abstinence
Prophetic and sublime.”
He cried, “I paint for time,
And these shall live in light,
Ideal and infinite
Of dawns when I lie dead.
I paint for time,” he said.
In the abyss of years;
In the unapparent morn
Of centuries unborn,
Something more fair and fine
Than thou canst now divine;
Some magic colour thrown
On the white monotone,
Some unimagined dye
Under the distant sky
Of the futurity,
Shall yet unlighted eyes
Transcendently surprise.
Say not—this colouring pale
Is but of small avail.
The hues thou dost create
Are too immaculate.
148
Paint with more passionate blood,
As with red grape's rich juice
The whiteness interfuse.
Men generations hence
Shall thank my abstinence
Prophetic and sublime.”
He cried, “I paint for time,
And these shall live in light,
Ideal and infinite
Of dawns when I lie dead.
I paint for time,” he said.
Laughter, or love, or tears,
Who would bequeath his peers,
Far through the distant years;
Who would a work descry
Man's heart will not let die,
While lives mortality;
He with an aim sublime
Must also paint for time,
And proudly wise let fall
Applauses temporal.
Who would bequeath his peers,
Far through the distant years;
Who would a work descry
Man's heart will not let die,
While lives mortality;
He with an aim sublime
Must also paint for time,
And proudly wise let fall
Applauses temporal.
| St. Augustine's Holiday and Other Poems | |