Legends of the Morrow :: :: University of Virginia Library

Legends of the Morrow

By Thomas Gordon Hake

Hake, Thomas Gordon (1809-1895)

THE SOUL-PAINTER.

THE POET'S ALMS-HOUSE.

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THE SOUL-PAINTER.

I

The cities with their standard-bearing heights;
The dome of prayer, the sky-allotted spire;
The marble effigies, the fountain-lights,
Kindle in him no spark of Nature's fire.
Save on his art no human love he doles:
He, the rapt painter of immortal souls.

II

He loves not, hates not, takes no human part;
But he has dreams and these, at sleep's return,
Enact their impulse, dragging at his heart:
Then through the dark those mingled colours burn
That he had gathered in the yester-light;
And Nature's soul moves on the face of night.

III

Men know that he for after-days can paint
The glory and the passion of a bride;
The stilled, o'er-brimming rapture of a saint;
They know, for aye, these treasures here abide:
But to his easel few have souls to bring,
And only souls can to his canvas cling.

IV

Where no soul is he shapes the lip's false play,
Gilding the smile: to this he dares not give
The hallowed tincture of the fresh-culled ray,
Though well he knows no other tint can live.
So his true colours breathe, while false ones flit,
Not by the soul but by the senses lit.

V

The Painter of the Soul adds no fresh gem
To woman's face; for, eyes of mercy wove
Draw to themselves the smile that fashions them
From the soul's fathoms; from unfathomed love.
This through the ages is the gem they keep,
Saved from the death of never-dreaming sleep.

VI

Thence rumours oft reveal to greedy ears
That many live and see their portraits fade;
But that the pure, who die, for length of years
Bloom fresh within the image he hath made,
As if the grave itself saw no decay
While in its rest their precious bodies lay.

VII

He whose surpassing art all souls obeyed!
Lured by the love of immortality
These left their earthly tenements and strayed
Into the pictures that could never die.
Their bodies wasted, but their souls had flight
Into life-forms as lasting as the light.

VIII

He bears his easel to the silent place;
At the sea-rim now skimming with his eyes
The lilac surf upon the water's face;
Now the rose-blue upon the bolder skies,
Till the robbed heaven a gusty shadow lifts
And its chilled lustre o'er the sun-blaze drifts.

IX

He haunts the moors; his thirsty stare he slakes
On the gorse-lightnings, till their golden blaze
Flows to his spirit and the flowers forsakes;
The purple heath is ravished by his gaze,
Till tender tints, too subtle for a name,
Seem the dark track of soul-devouring flame.

X

Where flows a stream, now peaceful as in sleep
That gurgles on through meads of evening dew,
Or rushes louder and with hasty leap,
Stained by bank flowers with many a spirit-hue;
The water-gardens, rich with flower-topped grass,
And trilling voices, to his spirit pass.

XI

There comes a maid in light, half-playful pace
Whose dimples dazzle as along she skips:
They hide as in a veil her sunny face,
Even as a bubble o'er a bubble slips.
She does not turn her eyes, though little coy;
And the brook follows, frisking in its joy.

XII

Bright soul! he strives to shape its fleeting charm
In rosy lights, but they refuse to snare
The dimples that about her beauty swarm
And quicken as they vanish into air.
'Tis vain; his once unfailing art is gone;
A soul has passed, and not upon him shone.

XIII

Madly he ponders: What avails yon crest
Of sunset-blaze whereat his eyes had drunk?
Her soul eludes him, fleeing from her rest,
And Nature's sun for him hath ever sunk!
If in its fondest light her soul is cold
Let him seek darkness; there her soul behold!

XIV

That sun returns; the anguish of his breast
But asks it now to blind his vacant eyes;
And they out-stare its beams, and sightless rest
Beneath the burning ocean as he lies.
All lovely things are one dispersing crowd;
The world one blur of gold and crimson cloud.

XV

A spectre-orb pursues him: when he turns
His vision to the east, he sees it rise;
When to the west in gold and red it burns,
And, over all, it masks the upper skies.
Athirst he gazes on its rainbow-streams,
And his soul ebbs, still drinking of the beams.

XVI

His body scarce awake, the slow-heaved breath,
Damping the fire of life's expiring glow,
Seeks yet to lengthen out the hour of death
While those orbed ruby flashes come and go.
The storm of light so ends, and sinks away
Into dark calm; the ash of burnt-out day.

XVII

Now crosses his dim path the same bright maid,
Who, as she looks upon him blind and pale,
Helpless a moment stands and is afraid.
She hurries to her father with her tale,
Who bears him thence to where that pity dwells
Which ever from the maiden bosom wells.

XVIII

The maid in loving duty watcheth long;
She gives his lips the water, and his head
The pillow's peace: interprets thoughts that throng
Ill-uttered, and rejoins them thread to thread.
His eyes pursue the way her footsteps wind;
They brighten at her voice, though they are blind.

XIX

Her tones are sweet as waters when they sing,
Yet pierce they deep as through a wilderness
The wild bird's scream, that doth the spirit wring;
Deeply they pierce the deeper to caress.
There doth she watch his love, her watch unknown,
And there, unseen, doth marvel at her own.

XX

Her voice to him in phantom forms appears:
Now as a lonely soul it seems to seek
His olden vision while it thrills his ears;
Now thither brings the shapely lips that speak.
A spirit floats where'er her music flows
And in love's mould to maiden likeness grows.

XXI

Thralled by his visions, perfect as when sleep
Reveals to closèd eyes the soul's cartoon,
His colours mingle to the music's sweep,
And with its silence into shadow swoon.
Her voice to her more speaking face akin,
His hand depicts the form he sees within.

XXII

Her soul that breathes from those devoted lips
Tremblings of speech, smiles dimpling into sighs,
Has passed to his and guides the hand that dips
His brush into the sky-tint of her eyes.
Entranced in light he limns the burning thought,
As one who only wrote the words he caught.

XXIII

The work is done,—and in an evening sky
The holy face is lit: he faints for breath
Into the dazing swoon of ecstasy,
His heart's last rapture while it covets death.
For he hath seen her, seen with vision sealed:
Her voice the soul, her soul the face revealed.

XXIV

So hath that soul passed to him like a brook
Into a fretted pool; akin to him,
Hath she for love her lonely course forsook,
And with her beauty lit his vision dim.
Her soul is his: one flood of being breaks
Into one rapture and one love awakes.

XXV

But when she breathes on him and her low scream
Flutters across his heart, his eyes are free!
They look into her face but only dream
As in some joy of being not to be.
Yet the bliss stays; he holds her with his eyes
And all illusion from that vision flies.

XXVI

They look upon the picture, 'tis her face;
Hers who now rests within his tangling arm.
Blind he beheld, and felt his pencil trace
The soul whose power had broken up his charm.
That charm returned sublimed all art above:
Though blind, her soul he painted through his love.