Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

Terrible things, I cannot bear to think of,

Must fall upon you;

Am I not here to be

show me that you

your little servant,

love me :

Follow your steps and wait upon your wishes?
Why may I not take up the heavy plaything,

shoulder carry

And on my
it behind you ?
Then, I am older, stronger too, than you are;
I am a child o' the desert and the mountains ;-
Deep i' the waste, I shouted at the wild bees,—
They flew away, and left me all the honey:
Look at the shaggy skin I've tied about me;
Surely, if Pain or any other evil

Somewhere about this mystery be hidden,
I am the fittest of the two to suffer!

THE CHILD JESUS.

(HOLDING THE CROSS FIRMLY.)

Ask me not, my gentle brother,-ask no more, it must not be :

In the heart of this poor trifle lies the secret unrevealed Which has brought me to this world, and sent you to prepare my way.

In the long and weary woodland, where your path of life will lead,

Thousand, myriad, other Crosses you will find on every

side;

And the same eternal Law that bids me take this chiefest

one,

Will be there to give you many, grievous as your strength can bear;

But in vain would you and others sink beneath the holy

load,

Were I not with mine before you, Captain of the Crucified;
I must be your elder Brother in the heritage of Pain ;
I must give you to our Father, I must fall for you to rise.

THE VIRGIN.

(WITH HER HAND ON THE CROSS.)

My soul is weak with doubt,—

What can I think or do?

To which of these dear children shall I yield
The object of their earnest looks and words?

Ah me! I see within

That artless wooden form,

A meaning of exceeding misery,

A dark, dark, shadow of oncoming woe.

Oh! give it up, my child!

I see your bright eyes close,

Your soft fair fingers spattered all with blood,
Your cheeks dead pale ;-throw down the horrid toy.

He grasps it firmer still!

I dare not thwart his hand;

For what he does, he does not of himself,
But in the Will of Him who sent him here.

And I, who labour blind

In this abysmal work,

Must bear the weight of dumb expectancy,
Of women first in honour and in woe!

IV.

CHRIST'S DESCENT INTO PURGATORY.

BY GIORGIONE, AT VENICE.

THE saving work for man is finishèd,

The kingdoms of the Earth and Air o'erthrown;
So now hath Christ come down among the dead,
Spoiling the Spoiler, to redeem his own.
What blessed glory plays about that head
For those who here in fiery bondage groan,

Conscious their suffering never could atone
For Sin, till He that once had suffered.
And, lo! in patient melancholy state
The synod of the Patriarchs rests apart
Condemned, tho' sons of God by faith, to wait
In this dark place and solitude of heart,
Joyless and tearless, till this Christ should come
To bear them to their Father and their Home.

TO GIOVANNI BELLINI.

SUGGESTED BY THE FACT OF THAT PAINTER'S HAVING HAD IN HIS ROOM A GRECIAN STATUE OF VENUS AS A STUDY.

THOU didst not slight with vain and partial scorn

The inspirations of our nature's youth,

Knowing that Beauty, wheresoe'er 'tis born,

Must ever be the foster-child of Truth.

Nor didst thou lower the Mother of the Lord
To the mere Goddess of a Pagan bower,

But with such grace as Christians have adored
Those sense-delighting charms thou didst empower;
And would that they who followed thee, and gave
To famous Venice yet another fame,

To be the Painter's home, had done the same,
Nor made their heart the imitative slave
Of those dead forms, as if the Christian span
Embraced no living Poetry for man.

The decline of pure religious feeling in Art in Venice may be, perhaps, most accurately dated from the influence of Aretino over Titian; up to that time he had hardly ever painted a profane subject, and no other artist ever seems to have thought of it. Afterwards such exceptions as Bonifacio and the piety of the people prevented so sudden a degradation as took place in the Roman school from Raffael to Giulio Romano, and in the Bolognese from Francia to Guido; but too soon came the younger Palma and his followers, the Caracci of the Venetians.

TO RAFFAEL.

"Raffael, alas! was the only person who conceived the project of recovering the remains of ancient Rome from its rubbish, by means of methodical excavations, and this led to no result whatever."-NIEBUHR.

THINE was the scheme, and worthy to be thine,
O Painter-Poet! with care and regular toil,
To raise those marvels from the entombing soil
With which Greek Art made Rome a place divine.
Though Gothic rage with Christian zeal combine,
Earthquake with flood,—the desolating coil

Of plague two centuries old with Guiscard's spoil,

« ForrigeFortsett »