— * Lines 27-87 {below—the rest of this section except the last two lines} were added in the edition of 1868; they clear up the obscurity of this section of the poem, as it stood in the original edition of 1864. —
2.
‘Tis a clay cast, the perfect thing,
From Hand live once, dead long ago:
Princess-like it wears the ring
To fancy’s eye, by which we know {30}
That here at length a master found
His match, a proud lone soul its mate,
As soaring genius sank to ground
And pencil could not emulate
The beauty in this,—how free, how fine
To fear almost!—of the limit-line.
Long ago the god, like me
The worm, learned, each in our degree:
Looked and loved, learned and drew,
Drew and learned and loved again, {40}
While fast the happy minutes flew,
Till beauty mounted into his brain
And on the finger which outvied
His art he placed the ring that’s there,
Still by fancy’s eye descried,
In token of a marriage rare:
For him on earth, his art’s despair,
For him in heaven, his soul’s fit bride.
3.
Little girl with the poor coarse hand
I turned from to a cold clay cast— {50}
I have my lesson, understand
The worth of flesh and blood at last!
Nothing but beauty in a Hand?
Because he could not change the hue,
Mend the lines and make them true
To this which met his soul’s demand,—
Would Da Vinci turn from you?
I hear him laugh my woes to scorn—
“The fool forsooth is all forlorn
Because the beauty, she thinks best, {60}
Lived long ago or was never born,—
Because no beauty bears the test
In this rough peasant Hand! Confessed
‘Art is null and study void!’
So sayest thou? So said not I,
Who threw the faulty pencil by,
And years instead of hours employed,
Learning the veritable use
Of flesh and bone and nerve beneath
Lines and hue of the outer sheath, {70}
If haply I might reproduce
One motive of the mechanism,
Flesh and bone and nerve that make
The poorest coarsest human hand
An object worthy to be scanned
A whole life long for their sole sake.
Shall earth and the cramped moment-space
Yield the heavenly crowning grace?
Now the parts and then the whole!
Who art thou, with stinted soul {80}
And stunted body, thus to cry
‘I love,—shall that be life’s strait dole?
I must live beloved or die!’
This peasant hand that spins the wool
And bakes the bread, why lives it on,
Poor and coarse with beauty gone,—
What use survives the beauty? Fool!”
Go, little girl with the poor coarse hand!
I have my lesson, shall understand.
IX. On Deck.
1.
There is nothing to remember in me,
Nothing I ever said with a grace,
Nothing I did that you care to see,
Nothing I was that deserves a place
In your mind, now I leave you, set you free.
— St. 1. Nothing I did that you care to see: refers to her art-work.
2.
Conceded! In turn, concede to me,
Such things have been as a mutual flame.
Your soul’s locked fast; but, love for a key,
You might let it loose, till I grew the same
In your eyes, as in mine you stand: strange plea!
3.
For then, then, what would it matter to me
That I was the harsh, ill-favored one?
We both should be like as pea and pea;
It was ever so since the world begun:
So, let me proceed with my reverie.
—
St. 3. Here it is indicated that she had not the personal charms
which were needed to maintain her husband’s interest.
A pretty face was more to him than a deep loving soul.
4.
How strange it were if you had all me,
As I have all you in my heart and brain,
You, whose least word brought gloom or glee,
Who never lifted the hand in vain
Will hold mine yet, from over the sea!
5.
Strange, if a face, when you thought of me,
Rose like your own face present now,
With eyes as dear in their due degree,
Much such a mouth, and as bright a brow,
Till you saw yourself, while you cried “‘Tis She!”