But first for thoughts and dreams he leisure found,
For consecration to the work at hand,
Since this the glory of his life should be,
A grand creation, a sweet symphony
Of human life, which all might understand,
Their souls re-echoed in the liquid sound.
II
He was a man of many changing moods,
Impetuous, like mighty Angelo,
And kindly, like the saintly Raphael,
His patience, like Palissy’s, nought could quell,
In worship, like the good Angelico,
And yet the “fickled Fame” his name excludes.
He nature loved, and wandered oft alone
Mid deep recesses of some shady wood,
And listened to the many varied sounds,
From notes of birds to noise of baying hounds,
And oftentimes as if enraptured stood,
Held by the music of the undertone.
Once had he loved a maiden, in whose eyes
He read the happiness of human life,
And mystery of the immortal soul,
A love to which he gave himself and all,
With but one aim, to win her as his wife,
And realize his dream of Paradise.
But death did also mark her for his own,
With hectic flushes on the pallid cheek,
And growing languor in the sprightly limbs;
And as the day before night’s darkness dims,
So did her youthful buoyancy grow weak,
And like a vision fair, she soon was gone.
And sorrow, with its wintry blast did chill
His manly nature to the very core,
And many months he spent in utter woe;
But, like the flow’r which grows beneath the snow,
A life which he had never known before
Rose from submission to the Higher Will.
These elements did pass into his work,
His love and grief, his dreams and changing moods,
And all he was seemed mingle in the mold
Of molten metal, and was subtly told
By silver tonguéd bells in solitudes
Of monastery, or of country kirk.
III
As one who summons all the latent pow’r
Within his soul, for one last great attempt
To reach an aim of lifelong beckoning,
Thus did he give himself to this one thing,
Began his task in spotless white, and kempt,
Emerging from the sacramental hour.