IN A GALLERY
(ANTWERP, 1891)
The Virgin floating on the silver moon; Madonna Mary with her holy child; Pale Christs on shuddering crosses lifted high; Sweet angel faces, bending from the blue; Saints rapt from earth in ecstasy divine, And martyrs all unmindful of their pain; Bold, mail-clad knights; fair ladyes whom they loved; Brown fisher-boys and maidens; harvest-fields, Where patient women toiled; with here and there The glint of summer skies and summer seas, And the red glow of humble, household fires!
Breathless I stood and silent, even as one Who, seeing all, sees nothing. Then a face Down the long gallery drew me as a star; A winsome, beckoning face, with bearded lips Just touched with dawning laughter, and clear eyes That kept their own dear secret, smiling still With a soft challenge. Dark robes lost in shade, Laces at throat and wrist, an ancient chair, And a long, slender hand whose fingers held Loosely a parchment scroll—and that was all. Yet from those high, imperial presences, Those lofty ones uplifted from dear earth With all its loves and longings, back I turned Again and yet again, lured by the smile That called me like a voice, “Come hither, friend!”
“Simon de Vos,” thus saith the catalogue, And “Painted by himself.” Three hundred years Thou hast been dust and ashes. I who write And they who read, we know another world From that thine eyes looked out on. Wouldst thou smile, Even as here thou smilest, if to-day Thou wert still of us? O, thou joyous one, Whose light, half-mocking laughter hath outlived So much earth held more precious, let thy lips Open and answer me! Whence was it born, The radiance of thy tender, sparkling face? What manner of man wert thou? For the books Of the long generations do not tell! Art thou a name, a smile, and nothing more? What dreams and visions hadst thou? Other men Would pose as heroes; would go grandly down To coming ages in the martyr’s rôle; Or, if perchance they’re poets, set their woes To wailing music, that the world may count Their heart-throbs in the chanting of a song. Immortal thou, by virtue of one smile!
IN MARBLE PRAYER
(CANTERBURY, 1891)
So still, so still they lie As centuries pass by, Their pale hands folded in imploring prayer; They never lift their eyes In sudden, sweet surprise; The wandering winds stir not their heavy hair Forth from their close-sealed lips Nor moan, nor laughter, slips, Nor lightest sigh to wake the entrancèd air!
Yet evermore they pray! We creatures of a day Live, love, and vanish from the gaze of men; Nations arise and fall; Oblivion’s heavy pall Hides kings and princes from all human ken, While these in marble state, From age to age await The rolling thunder of the last amen!
Not in dim crypts alone, Or aisles of fretted stone, Where high cathedral altars gleam afar; And the red light streams down On mitre and on crown, Till each proud jewel blazes like a star; But where the tall grass waves O’er long-forgotten graves, Their silent worship no rude sounds can mar!
Dost Thou not hear and heed? O, in Earth’s utmost need Wilt Thou not hearken, Thou who didst create? Not for themselves they pray Whose woes have passed for aye; For us, for us, before Thy throne they wait! Thou Sovereign Lord of All, On whom they mutely call, Hear Thou and answer from thine high estate!