Christmas Eve | Page 6

do,
Awaiting his return outside.
--'Twas thus my reason
straight replied
And joyously I turned, and pressed
The garment's
skirt upon my breast,
Until, afresh its light suffusing me,
My heart
cried--What has been abusing me
That I should wait here lonely and
coldly,
Instead of rising, entering boldly,
Baring truth's face, and
letting drift
Her veils of lies as they choose to shift?
Do these men
praise him? I will raise
My voice up to their point of praise!
I see
the error; but above
The scope of error, see the love.--
Oh, love of
those first Christian days!
--Fanned so soon into a blaze,
From the
spark preserved by the trampled sect,
That the antique sovereign
Intellect
Which then sat ruling in the world,
Like a change in
dreams, was hurled
From the throne he reigned upon:
You looked
up and he was gone.
Gone, his glory of the pen!
--Love, with
Greece and Rome in ken,
Bade her scribes abhor the trick
Of poetry
and rhetoric,
And exult with hearts set free,
In blessed imbecility

Scrawled, perchance, on some torn sheet
Leaving Sallust incomplete

Gone, his pride of sculptor, painter!
--Love, while able to acquaint
her
While the thousand statues yet
Fresh from chisel, pictures wet

From brush, she saw on every side,
Chose rather with an infant's
pride
To frame those portents which impart
Such unction to true
Christian Art.
Gone, music too! The air was stirred
By happy wings:

Terpander's* bird
*[Footnote: Terpander, a famous Lesbian musician
and lyric poet, 670 B.C.] (That, when the cold came, fled away)

Would tarry not the wintry day,--
As more-enduring sculpture must,

Till filthy saints rebuked the gust
With which they chanced to get a
sight
Of some dear naked Aphrodite
They glanced a thought above
the toes of,
By breaking zealously her nose off.
Love, surely, from
that music's lingering,
Might have filched her organ-fingering,
Nor
chosen rather to set prayings
To hog-grunts, praises to
horse-neighings.
Love was the startling thing, the new:
Love was
the all-sufficient too;
And seeing that, you see the rest:
As a babe
can find its mother's breast
As well in darkness as in light,
Love
shut our eyes, and all seemed right.
True, the world's eyes are open
now:
--Less need for me to disallow
Some few that keep Love's
zone unbuckled,
Peevish as ever to be suckled,
Lulled by the same
old baby-prattle
With intermixture of the rattle,
When she would
have them creep, stand steady
Upon their feet, or walk already,
Not
to speak of trying to climb.
I will be wise another time,
And not
desire a wall between us,
When next I see a church-roof cover
So
many species of one genus,
All with foreheads bearing lover

Written above the earnest eyes of them;
All with breasts that beat for
beauty,
Whether sublimed, to the surprise of them,
In noble daring,
steadfast duty,
The heroic in passion, or in action,--
Or, lowered for
sense's satisfaction,
To the mere outside of human creatures,
Mere
perfect form and faultless features.
What? with all Rome here,
whence to levy
Such contributions to their appetite,
With women
and men in a gorgeous bevy,
They take, as it were, a padlock, clap it
tight
On their southern eyes, restrained from
feeding
On the
glories of their ancient reading,
On the beauties of their modern
singing,
On the wonders of the builder's bringing,
On the majesties
of Art around them,--
And, all these loves, late struggling incessant,

When faith has at last united and bound them,
They offer up to
God for a present?
Why, I will, on the whole, be rather proud of it,--

And, only taking the act in reference
To the other recipients who

might have allowed it,
I will rejoice that God had the preference.
XII
So I summed up my new resolves:
Too much love there can never be.

And where the intellect devolves
Its function on love exclusively,

I, a man who possesses both,
Will accept the provision, nothing
loth,
--Will feast my love, then depart elsewhere,
That my intellect
may find its share.
And ponder, O soul, the while thou departest,

And see them applaud the great heart of the artist,
Who, examining
the capabilities
Of the block of marble he has to fashion
Into a type
of thought or passion,--
Not always, using obvious facilities,
Shapes
it, as any artist can,
Into a perfect symmetrical man,
Complete from
head to foot of the life-size,
Such as old Adam stood in his wife's
eyes,--
But, now and then, bravely aspires to consummate
A
Colossus by no means so easy to come at,
And uses the whole of his
block for the bust,
Leaving the mind of the public to finish it,
Since
cut it ruefully short he must:
On the face alone he expends his
devotion,
He rather would mar than resolve to diminish it,
--Saying,
"Applaud me for this grand notion
"Of what a face may be! As for
completing it
"In breast and body and limbs, do that, you!"
All hail!
I fancy how, happily meeting it,
A trunk and legs would perfect the
statue,
Could man carve so as to answer volition.
And how much
nobler than petty cavils,
Were a hope to find, in my
spirit-travels,Some artist of another ambition, Who, having a block to
carve, no bigger,
Has spent his power on the opposite quest,
And
believed to begin at the feet was best--
For so may I see, ere I die, the
whole figure!
XIII
No sooner said than out in the night!
My heart