The golden light into the painter's room Streamed richly, and the hidden colors stole From the dark pictures radiantly forth, And in the soft and dewy atmosphere Like forms and landscapes magical they lay. The walls were hung with armor, and about In the dim corners stood the sculptured forms Of Cytheris, and Dian, and stern Jove, And from the casement soberly away Fell the grotesque long shadows, full and true, And like a veil of filmy mellowness, The lint-specks floated in the twilight air. Parrhasius stood, gazing forgetfully Upon his canvas. There Prometheus lay, Chained to the cold rocks of Mount Caucasus— The vulture at his vitals, and the links Of the lame Lemnian festering in his flesh; And, as the painter's mind felt through the dim, Rapt mystery, and plucked the shadows forth With its far reaching fancy, and with form And color clad them, his fine, earnest eye Flashed with a passionate fire, and the quick curl Of his thin nostril, and his quivering lip Were like the winged god's breathing from his flight.
"Bring me the captive now! My hand feels skilful, and the shadows lift From my waked spirit airily and swift, And I could paint the bow Upon the bended heavens—around me play Colors of such divinity to-day.
"Ha! bind him on his back! Look—as Prometheus in my picture here! Quick—or he faints!—stand with the cordial near! Now—bend him to the rack! Press down the poisoned links into his flesh! And tear agape that healing wound afresh!
"So—let him writhe! How long Will he live thus? Quick, my good pencil, now! What a fine agony works upon his brow! Ha! gray-haired, and so strong! How fearfully he stifles that short moan! Gods! if I could but paint a dying groan!
"'Pity' thee! So I do! I pity the dumb victim at the altar— But does the robed priest for his pity falter? I'd rack thee though I knew A thousand lives were perishing in thine— What were ten thousand to a fame like mine?
"'Hereafter!' Ay—hereafter! A whip to keep a coward to his track! What gave Death ever from his kingdom back To check the sceptic's laughter? Come from the grave to-morrow with that story, And I may take some softer path to glory.
"No, no, old man! we die Even as the flowers, and we shall breathe away Our life upon the chance wind, even as they! Strain well thy fainting eye— For when that bloodshot quivering is o'er, The light of heaven will never reach thee more.
"Yet there's a deathless name! A spirit that the smothering vault shall spurn, And like a steadfast planet mount and burn; And though its crown of flame Consumed my brain to ashes as it shone, By all the fiery stars! I'd bind it on!—
"Ay—though it bid me rifle My heart's last fount for its insatiate thirst— Though every life-strung nerve be maddened first— Though it should bid me stifle The yearning in my throat for my sweet child, And taunt its mother till my brain went wild—
"All—I would do it all— Sooner than die, like a dull worm, to rot, Thrust foully into earth to be forgot! Oh heaven!—but I appall Your heart, old man! forgive—ha! on your lives Let him not faint!—rack him till he revives!