Where want is not, and, like the dew from heaven,

There drops upon the fevered soul

The balm of Thought's divine control

And rapt absorption in the whole:

Delivery in the realm of art

Of the world-racked human heart—

Forms and hues and sounds that make

Life grow lovelier for their sake.

By sheer persistence, strenuous and slow,

The marble yields and, line by flowing line

And curve by curve, begins to swell and shine

Beneath the ring of each far-sighted blow:

[52]

Until the formless block obeys the hand,

And at the mastering mind's supreme command

Takes form and radiates from each limb and feature

Such beauty as ne'er bloomed in mortal mould,

Whose face, out-smiling centuries, shall hold

Perfection's mirror up to 'prentice nature.

Not from out voluptuous ocean

 Prev. P 45/155 next