Poem by Alfred Noyes

Art

    (IMITATED FROM DE BANVILLE AND GAUTIER)

        I

    Yes! Beauty still rebels!
    Our dreams like clouds disperse:
      She dwells
    In agate, marble, verse.

    No false constraint be thine!
    But, for right walking, choose
      The fine,
    The strict cothurnus, Muse.

    Vainly ye seek to escape
    The toil! The yielding phrase
      Ye shape
    Is clay, not chrysoprase.

    And all in vain ye scorn
    That seeming ease which ne'er
      Was born
    Of aught but love and care.

    Take up the sculptor's tool!
    Recall the gods that die
      To rule
    In Parian o'er the sky.

    For Beauty still rebels!
    Our dreams like clouds disperse:
      She dwells
    In agate, marble, verse.


            II

    When Beauty from the sea,
    With breasts of whiter rose
      Than we
    Behold on earth, arose.

    Naked thro' Time returned
    The Bliss of Heaven that day,
      And burned
    The dross of earth away.

    Kings at her splendour quailed.
    For all his triple steel
      She haled
    War at her chariot-wheel.

    The rose and lily bowed
    To cast, of odour sweet
      A cloud
    Before her wandering feet.

    And from her radiant eyes
    There shone on soul and sense
      The skies'
    Divine indifference.

    O, mortal memory fond!
    Slowly she passed away
      Beyond
    The curling clouds of day.

    _Return_, we cry, _return_,
    Till in the sadder light
      We learn
    That she was infinite.

    The Dream that from the sea
    With breasts of whiter rose
      Than we
    Behold on earth, arose.


            III

    Take up the sculptor's tool!
    Becall the dreams that die
      To rule
    In Parian o'er the sky;
    And kings that not endure
    In bronze to re-ascend
      Secure
    Until the world shall end.

    Poet, let passion sleep
    Till with the cosmic rhyme
      You keep
    Eternal tone and time,

    By rule of hour and flower,
    By strength of stern restraint
      And power
    To fail and not to faint.

    The task is hard to learn
    While all the songs of Spring
      Return
    Along the blood and sing.

    Yet hear--from her deep skies,
    How Art, for all your pain,
      Still cries
    _Ye must be born again!_

    Reject the wreath of rose,
    Take up the crown of thorn
      That shows
    To-night a child is born.

    The far immortal face
    In chosen onyx fine
      Enchase,
    Delicate line by line.

    Strive with Carrara, fight
    With Parian, till there steal
      To light
    Apollo's pure profile.

    Set the great lucid form
    Free from its marble tomb
      To storm
    The heights of death and doom.

    Take up the sculptor's tool!
    Recall the gods that die
      To rule
    In Parian o'er the sky,

1. The Escape of the Old Grey Squirrel
2. Necromancy
3. Song of the Wooden-Legged Fiddler
4. Earth-Bound
5. Fishers of Men

Herman Melville Art ("IN placid hours well-pleased we dream")

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