Or what if from the golden palace gate The king’s fair son on some bright morn should stray? Would he not send his lords of high estate To lead him back ere fell the close of day?
Even so our King from Heaven’s high portals saw The fair young Prince where earth’s dull shades advance, And sent his messengers of love and law To bear him home to his inheritance!
THE PAINTER’S PRAYER
“NEC ME PRÆTERMITTAS, DOMINE!”
(An incident in the painting of Holman Hunt’s
“Light of the World.”)
“Nay,” he said, “it is not done! At to-morrow’s set of sun Come again, if you would see What the finished thought may be.” Straight they went. The heavy door On its hinges swung once more, As within the studio dim Eye and heart took heed of Him!
How the Presence filled the room, Brightening all its dusky gloom! Saints and martyrs turned their eyes From the hills of Paradise; Rapt in holy ecstasy, Mary smiled her Son to see, Letting all her lilies fall At His feet—the Lord of all!
But the painter bowed his head, Lost in wonder and in dread, And as at a holy shrine Knelt before the form divine. All had passed—the pride, the power, Of the soul’s creative hour— Exaltation’s soaring flight To the spirit’s loftiest height.
Had he dared to paint the Lord? Dared to paint the Christ, the Word? Ah, the folly! Ah, the sin! Ah, the shame his soul within! Saints might turn on him their eyes From the hills of Paradise, But the painter could not brook On that pictured face to look.
Yet the form was grand and fair, Fit to move a world to prayer; God like in its strength and stress, Human in its tenderness. From it streamed the Light divine, O’er it drooped the heavenly vine, And beneath the bending spray Stood the Life, the Truth, the Way!
Suddenly with eager hold, Back he swept the curtain’s fold, Letting all the sunset glow O’er the living canvas flow. Surely then the wondrous eyes Met his own in tenderest wise, And the Lord Christ, half revealed, Smiled upon him as he kneeled!