Bessie Rayner Parkes

The World of Art

THOU that wouldst enter here,
Hold thy breath inward with an holy fear;
Put off thy shoes, thou in this place wilt see
The outward symbol of Divinity;
And so much of the mystery of things
As man may fathom with the light he brings:
A faint and flickering light, which can but show
The dim uncertain form of all we know;
Yet ever and anon shall fire from God
Flash on the Artists as they humbly plod,
Revealing more than knowledge; they must write
With firm recording hand the momentary sight.

Thou that wouldst enter here,
Fashion thy being with an aim austere;
Leave thou thy bitterness of heart behind--
Leave thou the wretched questions of the mind--
Take of grief, only such as, inly worn,
Hath grown incorporate, a blossomed thorn--
Take of love, only such as, nursed in prayer,
Serves to thy spirit as an altar stair--
All base ambitions see that thou forsake--
All the bright armour of a Christian take--
Turn thy face forward ever, cast thy lot
With saints and martyrs, and repent it not!

Thou must be open to all influence,
Whether of brain, or heart, or soul, or sense;
Thou must have nerves more subtle than the strings
Of that mysterious harp which sobs and sings
Under the elements, yet hold the sway,--
Summon and master dreams which shall not pass away.

Be humble in interpreting the light,
Like some clear window undiscerned by sight,
Save in its boundary arch, too sadly small
For that clear glory which might lighten all.
Yet confident as one who holds a torch,
And conquers darkness in a midnight church
For some small space around; be faithful, true,
As one who, standing under heaven's blue,
Sees truly all things visible--far skies,
And the fair flowery earth that near him lies--
And gives them truly back, nor fails to know
More noble those above than this below.

O Artist! Sculptor! Poet! go thy way
With far more trembling care than others may!
Thou art anointed to as high a place,
Wilt thou but know it, as a man may grace.
Great is the lot assigned thee, great the task
As even the most heroic soul dare ask:
Great be thy heart to meet it; it demands
A watchful spirit and untiring hands.
Not thine alone the burden and the care,--
Not thine alone the duty and the prayer,--
All earth prays with thee that thy hands be pure,
Thy work untainted and its teaching sure.

He who profanely touches things divine,
Carving base cups for sacramental wine;
Spoiling each sacred, sweet, and tender thought,
Bringing all natural gifts to worse than nought,
Wringing the heart of matter forth to show
What coarse and sensual meanings lurk below;
Or rather trailing his own evil mood
Over the innocent beauty God called good;
Placing on all he fingers such a mark
As proves his inner soul defiled and dark;
Sings the sad song our fallen hearts rehearse,
And spends his blessing to record the curse.

That he was born, is sorrow! Like a blight
Is Art's false priest, he darkens all our light,
He poisons what were else our healing springs,
And casts a slur on all most holy things.
Oh, far from all who labour and who pray,
Be such an awful vision swept away!
Better to perish as the poor field flower,
Which lives its beautiful unconscious hour;
Better to be that grass whose rock-sown blades
Utterly wither ere full summer fades;
Better to live unknown and die unwept,
In darkest, humblest shades of nature kept;
Better to know no hope, no power, no love,
No grace of earth below, nor heaven above,
Better the darkest doom can fall on us,
Better to have no life than use it thus!
But to the watchful eyes and praying hearts
Of those who nobly sought and used the Arts,

Whose very names all noble things suggest,
What shall Earth give them? Lo! they stand confessed
The intellectual kings of Man. Oh! more,
Ten thousand times more bright the crowns they wore
Than any kings of Men; 'twas theirs to be
Prophets and poets of the mystery;
They bore the brightness and the diadem
Which He who call'd them servants gave to them.
Calm are the nights, and happy are the days,
Of those who sing His love or paint His praise;
For them this glorious world reveals her sign,
The mystic warrant of her birth divine,
Unseen of duller eyes; for them are born
Fresh forms of beauty every eve and morn;
For them is nature but a shadowy veil
Of that white Throne before which suns are pale,
And the light blackness: clearly they discern,
And nobly render all the truths they learn,
Being with truth infused; happy is he
Who cannot measure what he strives to be!

O world of Art! O Shrine
Wherein we treasure all we hold divine,
How art thou blest!
Whoso is weary in this world of care,
Finds in thy presence a perpetual prayer
And patient rest;
Finds a reminder of those things which bide
When we and all our phantasms drop aside
Into the gulf of death, a hope sublime,
A realm unfading set apart from time.
Did the great heart of Faith itself decay,--
Were Cross and Church and Altar swept away,--
Thou from thy treasury couldst that faith restore,
And light the Lamp of Sacrifice once more!

O thou fair world of Art!
From whence my soul would never fain depart,
But dwell up there and be
Numbered among that goodly company,
No tint of whose bright freshness can decay,
Nor any silver utterance die away!
There lives whatever in past time befel,
There all that Sagas or that Epics tell,
All the great deeds that thrill a nation's heart
Live, bright and deathless, in the world of Art!
All beauty ever dreamt, all faith, all hope,
Hath there a glorious scope;
All of heroic, exquisite, or splendid--
There Raffaelle walks a king with all his peers attended;
There the grand Sibyls sit, in whose dark eyes
Creation's unredeemèd promise lies,
And thunderous prophets of gigantic mould
Wail us degenerate from the days of old.
There the fair woman of Venetian prime

Glows as when first she unveiled her face to Time,
And bade him spare that beauty from the tomb;--
He gave her Titian, and reversed the doom!
Our heavenly types, who move in sacred story,
Cast on the threshold a diviner glory,
And from one central figure, as a sun,
Streams of the heavenly radiance earthward run;
Cradled on lilies as a Child He lies,
And sleeps amidst a chorus of the skies,
Or waxes fair beside a Virgin's knee,
And walks in thoughtful prime by Galilee.

Many are there we know,
Who visit us in dreams we love them so--
The gracious poet and the stern-eyed saint,
And martyrs whom no flame could cause to faint,
Maidens and youths whom love did bind in one,
(That golden thread which doth through ages run,)
Pale matrons mourning in their widow weeds,
And babes whose promise gave a pledge for deeds.

Ah! thou fair world of Art,
From whence my soul would never fain depart,
Thy skies are ever grand!
They cast the shadow of immortal gloom,
Or glow and throb with supernatural bloom,
And open infinite vistas to the enchanted land.
Thy broad transparent river rolls along,
And every ripple breaks into a song;
On the green banks, where happy lovers go,
The golden apples grow,
And the fair fabulous birds of ancient tale
Warble their magic music without fail;
While winds that tremble round thy peaks of fire,
Bring down rich echoes of the angelic choir.

Ah, thou fair world of Art!
Happy are they who dwell in thee apart,
Who, being dead, yet live,--and cannot die,--
In blessed and blessing immortality;
Happy all bred in thine ethereal air,
And all deemed worthy of translation there!
Happy the meanest servitor who waits
Humbly expectant of thine awful gates.
Thou! nobler conquest than a world-wide throne,
Who dost with more than royal sway enrich thine own!