FullReads

Much they reck of your praise and you!
But the wronged great souls–can they be quit
Of a world where their work is all to do,
Where you style them, you of the little wit, 60
Old Master This and Early the Other,
Not dreaming that Old and New are fellows:
A younger succeeds to an elder brother,
Da Vincis derive in good time from Dellos.

And here where your praise might yield returns, 65
And a handsome word or two give help,
Here, after your kind, the mastiff girns
And the puppy pack of poodles yelp.
What, not a word for Stefano there,
Of brow once prominent and starry, 70
Called Nature’s Ape and the world’s despair
For his peerless painting? (See Vasari.)

There stands the Master. Study, my friends,
What a man’s work comes to! So he plans it,
Performs it, perfects it, makes amends 75
For the toiling and moiling, and then, sic transit!
Happier the thrifty blind-folk labor,
With upturned eye while the hand is busy,
Not sidling a glance at the coin of their neighbor!
‘Tis looking downward that makes one dizzy. 80

“If you knew their work you would deal your dole.”
May I take upon me to instruct you?
When Greek Art ran and reached the goal,
Thus much had the world to boast in fructu—
The Truth of Man, as by God first spoken, 85
Which the actual generations garble,
Was re-uttered, and Soul (which Limbs betoken)
And Limbs (Soul informs) made new in marble.

So you saw yourself as you wished you were,
As you might have been, as you cannot be; 90
Earth here, rebuked by Olympus there:
And grew content in your poor degree
With your little power, by those statues’ godhead,
And your little scope, by their eyes’ full sway,
And your little grace, by their grace embodied, 95
And your little date, by their forms that stay.

You would fain be kinglier, say, than I am?
Even so, you will not sit like Theseus.
You would prove a model? The Son of Priam
Has yet the advantage in arms’ and knees’ use. 100
You’re wroth–can you slay your snake like Apollo?
You’re grieved–still Niobe’s the grander!
You live–there’s the Racers’ frieze to follow:
You die–there’s the dying Alexander.

So, testing your weakness by their strength, 105
Your meager charms by their rounded beauty,
Measured by Art in your breadth and length,
You learned–to submit is a mortal’s duty.
–When I say “you” ’tis the common soul,
The collective, I mean–the race of Man 110
That receives life in parts to live in a whole,
And grow here according to God’s clear plan.

Growth came when, looking your last on them all,
You turned your eyes inwardly one fine day
And cried with a start–What if we so small 115
Be greater and grander the while than they?
Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature?
In both, of such lower types are we
Precisely because of our wider nature;
For time, theirs–ours, for eternity. 120