THE "EVE" OF POWERS.
A faultless being from the marble sprung,
She stands in beauty there!
As when the grace of Eden 'round her clung—
Fairest, where all was fair!
Pure, as when first from God's creating hand
She came, on man to shine;
So seems she now, in living stone to stand—
A mortal, yet divine!
The spark the Grecian from Olympus caught,
Left not a loftier trace;
The daring of the sculptor's hand has wrought
A soul in that sweet face!
He won as well the sacred fire from heaven.
God-sent, not stolen down,
And no Promethean doom for him is given,
But ages of renown!
The soul of beauty breathes around that form
A more enchanting spell;
There blooms each virgin grace, ere yet the storm
On blighted Eden fell!
The first desire upon her lovely brow,
Raised by an evil power;
Doubt, longing, dread, are in her features now—
It is the trial-hour!
How every thought that strives within her breast,
In that one glance is shown!
Say, can that heart of marble be at rest,
Since spirit warms the stone?
Will not those limbs, of so divine a mould,
Move, when her thought is o'er—
When she has yielded to the tempter's hold
And Eden blooms no more?
Art, like a Phoenix, springs from dust again—
She cannot pass away!
Bound down in gloom, she breaks apart the chain
And struggles up today!
The flame, first kindled in the ages gone,
Has never ceased to burn,
And westward now, appears the kindling dawn,
Which marks the day's return!
The "Greek Slave" is now in the possession of Mr. Grant, of London, and I only saw the clay model. Like the Eve, it is a form that one's eye tells him is perfect, unsurpassed; but it is the budding loveliness of a girl, instead of the perfected beauty of a woman. In England it has been pronounced superior to Canova's works, and indeed I have seen nothing of his, that could be placed beside it.
Powers has now nearly finished a most exquisite figure of a fisher-boy, standing on the shore, with his net and rudder in one hand, while with the other he holds a shell to his ear and listens if it murmur to him of a gathering storm. His slight, boyish limbs are full of grace and delicacy—you feel that the youthful frame could grow up into nothing less than an Apollo. Then the head—how beautiful! Slightly bent on one side, with the rim of the shell thrust under his locks, lips gently parted, and the face wrought up to the most hushed and breathless expression, he listens whether the sound be deeper than its wont. It makes you hold your breath and listen, to look at it. Mrs. Jameson somewhere remarks that repose or suspended motion, should be always chosen for a statue that shall present a perfect, unbroken impression to the mind. If this be true, the enjoyment must be much more complete where not only the motion, but almost breath and thought are suspended, and all the faculties wrought into one hushed and intense sensation. In gazing on this exquisite conception, I feel my admiration filled to the utmost, without that painful, aching impression, so often left by beautiful works. It glides into my vision like a form long missed from the gallery of beauty I am forming in my mind, and I gaze on it with an ever new and increasing delight.
Now I come to the last and fairest of all—the divine Proserpine. Not the form, for it is but a bust rising from a capital of acanthus leaves, which curve around the breast and arms and turn gracefully outward, but the face, whose modest maiden beauty can find no peer among goddesses or mortals. So looked she on the field of Ennæ—that "fairer flower," so soon to be gathered by "gloomy Dis." A slender crown of green wheatblades, showing alike her descent from Ceres and her virgin years, circles her head. Truly, if Pygmalion stole his fire to warm such a form as this, Jove should have pardoned him. Of Powers' busts it is unnecessary for me to speak. He has lately finished a very beautiful one of the Princess Demidoff, daughter of Jerome Bonaparte.
We will soon, I hope, have the "Eve" in America. Powers has generously refused many advantageous offers for it, that he might finally send it home; and his country, therefore, will possess this statue, his first ideal work. She may well be proud of the genius and native energy of her young artist, and she should repay them by a just and liberal encouragement.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. — AN ADVENTURE ON THE GREAT ST. BERNARD—WALKS AROUND FLORENCE.
Nov. 9.—A few days ago I received a letter from my cousin at Heidelberg, describing his solitary walk from Genoa over the Alps, and through the western part of Switzerland. The news of his safe arrival dissipated the anxiety we were beginning to feel, on account of his long silence, while it proved that our fears concerning the danger of such a journey were not altogether groundless. He met with a startling adventure on the Great St. Bernard, which will be best described by an extract from his own letter: