Classic Poem

Yes , it is beautiful.... There is no man
Living who could have made the thing so plain
For eyes untaught: and there his work is great.
He loved life best in marble. But 'twas Life,
Breath, impulse, passion — name it as you will —
He chose apart from Dream. No paradox:
It's not the maker, primitive himself,
Who knows the beauty of his simpleness.
The subtle man, the thwarted modern man
It is who sees the old instinctive life
With eyes of curious envy; holds aloof
To study with delight the primal hues
And pulsing shadow and clear symmetries
Of stress and joy and folly, not for him —
Thought-hindered and complex. That man was Niel.

But how he made her! I have loitered here
Along the gallery, of a holiday,
And watched the workmen passing, twos and threes,
To see the sights, half-looking with grave awe
On this and that (freemen and yet oppressed
By some vague condescension of the air)
Turn back, to finger a companion's sleeve
And point at this. It needs no word at all
To tell the meaning of the Wingless Joy.

Unto the happiest life, the gods allow
But once that rapture tiptoe in mid-heaven!
And yet she is so sweetly made of earth,
The earth of rain-pure April — and her lips
Are parted with a human sweet amaze
To feel the sudden immortality
Of flame go singing, singing in her veins,
" Kin with the rose-tree and the wakened brook,
Made to make glad, behold I gladden You,
And all things lean to me! I cannot die."
How simple, just to make her standing there,
Poised like a fountain, ever old and new!
And her wide eyes — some statues have no eyes —
Rapt with the tidings of exceeding joy
That dawns for her, a vision half withheld
Of utmost, and unspeakable, and dear;
Herself so clear a heart, she cannot doubt!
For me, that woman wrought of changeless stone,
Darkles and sparkles with a living light.
Her smile so questions something her eyes see
And read again. Her revelation grows;
And how the risen gladness overruns
From her glad being, — sweetness of the tree,
To thrill the air and hold it like a Voice!
Some look askance upon that gift of his
To seize ephemera and make them live; —
Call it unsculpturesque ... although his art
Hushes the cricket-cry like thunder near,
When they stand face to face with such as this,
This Utmost Moment that outlives the years.
. . . . . . . . .
Wingless, you see. She has no other home.
She loves her once; the single soul of her
Knows but the glory of one day and night.
She may not come and go, — nor hide, nor range;
Nor find her any refuge in the stars.
She walks the earth with lovely earthly feet,
And when earth fails her, she can only die.
How well he knew! ... And yet he did not know.

You've heard the story. But you never saw
The woman till to-day; well, see her now
And yet if you had seen her that first time
She dawned on us. ... A knock upon the door,
Half-heeded with " Come in" — and there she stood,
Full in a shaft of sunlight that the square
Small window of the hall let in, with Spring.
Her eyes unknowing, wide and unafraid,
And the whole outline of her edged with light;
Her hair, — you know that dark of Italy,
So black, it turns the sun to silverness,
And in the shadow, purples with a bloom
Of vineyards? And you know the brightness held
In the warm shallow of a woman's ear,
So intricate and simple, — human rose,
But eloquent as not a rose may be!
Oh, yes, for that first breath, you may be sure
I thought the Vision must have given heed,
Quite mother-wise, like the Madonna there
Who holds her Baby ever in her arm
And listens to the prayers of all the poor!
This seemed so plain a challenge from the Sun,
Color and color! Such a little thing
Remained — to paint it merely — in the day
Of visitation! I was wrong, you see.
Enough of dreamers. ... It was Life for Niel;
And it was Niel who saw her Beauty through
The clothing loveliness; and it was Niel
Who made her clear: — the elemental heart
That can drink off one rapture for a draught,
Mindless of meat and drink forevermore.
. . . . . . . . .
That first day keeps the fragrance more than all.
I know Niel watched her with his opaque eyes
Of thought, while she, her errand on her lips,
Unuttered, moved about half dreamingly,
A shy, sure presence; looked upon his work
And then at mine, with the first smile for me;
Stood back an instant from Diskobolos,
In a dark corner, then begged pardon of him
Speechlessly with a slow approving look
Of old acquaintance; passed the Laughing Faun;
Wondered somewhat, with gentle courtesy,
At the scant treasures that our walls could show
In those bare days (for we were workmen both);
The few old textiles, prey of moth and dust,
But boastful of their color to the last;
A sketch or two from dead, immortal hands,
And hanging near, a crescent in a wrack
Of sunset-cloud, my eastern scimitar.
Whereat she shook her head and drew her breath —
As a good child helps out a fairy tale
With willing fright — and drew away from it.
Then catching sight of some more friendly thing,
Her eyes grew gold again with happy mirth;
She flung the shawl back from her little wrist,
Spread wide the fingers, tapered like a saint's,
And held them, warm and fresh, beside a cast
As like as death may be ... " So, here, — my hand!"
Out came the errand then by single words,
Strange music to us, scattered mellow notes,
And then a rush of voluble sweet talk,
Like the first blackbird that a schoolboy hears.

I think he saw his triumph from the first,
This venture that would win the world to him,
While he made studies, and the problem grew.
The workman in him breasted, day and night,
A stretch of bush and brier and stubborn rock
Fit for a pioneer; — won inch by inch,
As none could do who did not see his path
Through one portentous struggle, to the clear
Far peak, star-confident. Niel was a man
Who bound the service of all elements
He came upon: himself unpitied slave
To his own purpose, — other minds to him;
This girl beyond them all. ...
No, there is nothing hidden, no offence
Unsightly to the world; — all far from that!
Of course she came to love him, to be his
As wholly as a dumb child must belong
To its interpreter. He had the look
That comprehends a man, and binds him so.
For Niel there was no mystery in men:
No need to be yourself adventurer!
Art for Art's sake! and keep your vision clear:
Lean from the gallery along with us
And watch the gladiators as they come,
And praise who dies the best! We are beyond
That rude encounter, beautiful to see.
He understood it so, and took delight
In nature of the simplest human scale.
The unknown essence only served to spice
Some little talk of self, across the smoke,
Late evenings; filled the place of reverence
Towards women of his world, elusive, fine,
Detached as he, between their ways of thought
And outgrown intuitions. Ah, he was
An Artist; and he saw as none else could,
The rarity of this intrepid bloom
Whose only speech was Being. There it grew
Wild, by the highroad! And he gathered it.

I do not know how much of it was Art,
Or how much more, perhaps, the constant lure
Of her young spirit for the curious mind.
It is not often that we see a heart
So near — and red — and empty. And to know —
To know for once, and show it to the world,
How golden eyes could darken and turn gold
From some new source of sunrise and of night;
To see a child-face grow before your own
Into the dream of womanhood in flower;
To know what words that simple tongue would shape
For tenderness as foreign as its speech; —
To know what Eve could find in her to say
When first the lips of the first man made plea
Against her cheek, there in the garden-place,
Eastward in Eden — have you ever thought? —
Herself the only woman that she knew!
Did you not wish, along the gallery there
Only an hour ago, to take that vase
Of Cyprus out from all its fellow wares,
Into the light, where you could hear it plain? —
You said so, laughing, — where it could unfold
Its eloquence; the equal melody,
And the globed dimness, glass soft breathed upon
By ancient years till it is opal-strange,
And lucent as a drowsy underwave
Of green sea-water lighted by the sun;
Perfect and empty: — with some use, be sure,
Save to stand idle, even for us to see
With eyes of worship. For the elder Art
Had ever such near kinship with men's lives,
To enrich poor shrines and sweeten peasant bread.
So, why not make that shape articulate?
Fulfil its longing; set it in the light;
Give it the crocuses it's empty for,
And watch the water, softly set ajar,
Shake out the beryl lights and filminess,
And gather silver on the April stems.
The love of some men is not so unlike
This woman fineness. Yes, all thought aside,
To watch the beauty of fulfilment, close,
With pleased and curious eyes.
I saw — half saw —
How Niel was making her the perfect Joy
With all a workman's ardor of research.
God knows I cannot tell what art he used ...
My voice is not the charmer's — But I saw
He would have out the hidden strength in her, —
Bade her be woman; — studied with delight
The early largess of that southern dawn;
Blew back the folded petals of the rose,
Only to see! ... till he could say at last,
" Look at me, Benedetta. So at me.
And can you look, for just the breathing space,
As if you saw before you — but not far,
All that your heart desired; — not too far —
The dearest thing that you could ask of life?
Yes, see it, try to see the Heart's Desire!"
His hands upon her shoulders then, for poise;
And as she looked back dumbly (coming in,
I seemed to hear her look) he tried too far
What tenderness could wake. " So, child," he said,
And kissed her.

The model grew like magic from that day; —
The world knows how, and how it saw the light.
At the first cry of that world-wide acclaim,
She shared our little carnival with us;
And kissed her radiant sister of the clay —
Because she brought him fortune in an hour! —
And kissed her own face in the faded glass,
Saying, " Yes, it is true, the thing you speak:
The good God made my head and hands and all;
He made me well. But you," — to Niel, — " you, you,
Have made me much more lovelier than He.
Oh, Benedetta! She is Joy indeed!"
. . . . . . . . .
Within a few strange weeks, how all was changed!
After his years of shallow half-success,
The venture won, the man's name common talk,
And the One Woman of his finer world —
Charmed from herself and stepping from the niche
To follow his new fortunes over sea!
It seems a thing unreal, impossible
To dreamer and to drudge. But so it came.
On the last day I found him there at work
Against the sudden break for liberty,
Ready to go. I spoke then: " Does she know?"
" Who? Benedetta? Yes, she must have heard,
These noisy days that I have been away.
She is a marvel, when all's said. Without her
It never could have been. I owe her all. —
A genius for existence. ... What she might
Have been ... in any other century!
Well, she's herself: a glory. And for me,
The thing is done."
I was still there at dusk,
Unwillingly delaying, when she came.
" The marble, Benedetta! It is sold."
She listened dully, creature of the South,
Sleep-walking in some desolate new cold;
Her eyes too fixed with watching. So: she knew.
" Me — me," she answered slowly, " that is well.
You have your fortune of it. I am glad.
And you are going — where?"
" New lands, — new seas;
Your country, Benedetta!"
" Yes," she said,
" It was my country: I remember it. ...
And when you go, you take the clay with you?"
He laughed a little. " Say good-by," he said,
" Like the good friend you are, and wish me well.
I cannot tell you what you were to me. ...
I go to-morrow. ..." I have never seen
Before or since that day such eyes of death,
Wide, empty, gaunt — with all the light gone out.
He answered half, the gaze he did not meet
Even with his own opaque and buoyant looks —
Turned to the Joy and said, " Look, you are she!
Be proud of her, for she is always glad."

For a strange moment, then, she stretched her arms
Like one left houseless, saying, " Is it I? "
And looked at her two hands, and at the Joy
That smiled on her unwisdom, with great eyes.
And feeling, with vague steps, and sight gone dim,
After the doorway, — so she chanced to jar
The single hanging with its bits of steel;
And sound and thought struck home.
I know it was
A madness, not a purpose; nay, not that, —
Only the impulse of a tortured heart
To put some thing that suffered out of pain:
She caught that lightning from the tapestry.
. . . . . . . . .
My scimitar it was. ... I drew it out.
But time seemed long with nothing left to do
Save bite the anguish back, to succor hers,
And kiss her poor sweet hands, and lay her down,
— The torn heart in her harshly sobbing out
Its redness, — and to turn her face away
From that transfigured vision of herself,
Still smiling on her ... as it smiles on you.
And this is what she lived for! ...
I was wrong
To call him Judas. How should he foresee?
The spirit is grown frugal in these days.
Who thinks to meet with spendthrift love and hate
Out of a sonnet sequence? — What, at home?
Or in the street? Or in your eyes, new friend?
Suppose you set yourself, half poet-wise,
Half curiously, and beckoned by What-if?
To call up some far spirit from Without.
Would not your heart turn cold to see it grow
Reluctantly, — the never-faded eyes,
The voice you disbelieved in, with, " I come.
You called? What would you have?"
And yet take care
We are so quick to blame some Master Hand:
We say, " He made us and He moulded us
To see us broken so!" It is the cry
Of the stung believer; and it is the cry
Of him who says there is no God at all, —
Girding up in his heart the bitterness
Against a blank, black space that should be God,
And is not, only emptiness abhorred
By Nature and her son! — We cry on Him.
Oh, why not — if the Art be all in all —
Say of the Potter, " Art for Art's sake," then!
Grant Him your modern right to make and mar
For the mere craft's sake, too; and let Him say,
(Why not, why not?)
" I made this Woman here
Of fairness from the clay of trodden Springs.
Look you, lost June is in her. You can see
In her young hands the selfsame primal glow
That flushes in My gardens of the world.
And I have given her the miracle,
The beating heart within, the holy Fire.
So, full of breath. ... Live, suffer, — shine, and die.
Fairer than petals, go the way of them. ...
I made and I have broken. It is good."