FullReads

Today’s brief passion limits their range;
It seethes with the morrow for us and more.
They are perfect–how else? they shall never change;
We are faulty–why not? we have time in store.
The Artificer’s hand is not arrested 125
With us; we are rough-hewn, nowise polished;
They stand for our copy, and, once invested
With all they can teach, we shall see them abolished.

‘Tis a life-long toil till our lump be leaven–
The better! What’s come to perfection perishes. 130
Things learned on earth we shall practice in heaven:
Works done least rapidly, Art most cherishes.
Thyself shalt afford the example, Giotto!
Thy one work, not to decrease or diminish,
Done at a stroke, was just (was it not?) “O!” 135
Thy great Campanile is still to finish.

Is it true that we are now, and shall be hereafter,
But what and where depend on life’s minute?
Hails heavenly cheer or infernal laughter
Our first step out of the gulf or in it? 140
Shall Man, such step within his endeavor,
Man’s face, have no more play and action
Than joy which is crystallized forever,
Or grief, an eternal petrifaction?

On which I conclude, that the early painters, 145
To cries of “Greek Art and what more wish you?”–
Replied, “To become now self-acquainters,
And paint man, man, whatever the issue!
Make new hopes shine through the flesh they fray,
New fears aggrandize the rags and tatters: 150
To bring the invisible full into play!
Let the visible go to the dogs–what matters?”

Give these, I exhort you, their guerdon and glory
For daring so much, before they well did it.
The first of the new, in our race’s story, 155
Beats the last of the old; ’tis no idle quiddit.
The worthies began a revolution,
Which if on earth you intend to acknowledge,
Why, honor them now! (ends my allocution)
Nor confer your degree when the folk leave college. 160

There’s a fancy some lean to and others hate–
That, when this life is ended, begins
New work for the soul in another state,
Where it strives and gets weary, loses and wins:
Where the strong and the weak, this world’s congeries, 165
Repeat in large what they practiced in small,
Through life after life in unlimited series;
Only the scale’s to be changed, that’s all.

Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen
By the means of Evil that Good is best, 170
And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven’s serene–
When our faith in the same has stood the test–
Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod,
The uses of labor are surely done;
There remaineth a rest for the people of God; 175
And I have had troubles enough, for one.

But at any rate I have loved the season
Of Art’s spring-birth so dim and dewy;
My sculptor is Nicolo the Pisan,
My painter–who but Cimabue? 180
Nor ever was a man of them all indeed,
From these to Ghiberti and Ghirlandajo,
Could say that he missed my critic-meed.
So, now to my special grievance–heigh-ho!