Of My Lady In Death
All seems a painted show. I look
Up thro' the bloom that's shed
By leaves above my head,
And feel the earnest life forsook
All being, when she died:
My heart halts, hot and dried
As the parched course where once a brook
Thro' fresh growth used to flow,
Because her past is now
No more than stories in a printed book.
The grass has grown above that breast,
Now cold and sadly still,
My happy face felt thrill:
Her mouth's mere tones so much expressed!
Those lips are now close set,
Lips which my own have met;
Her eyelids by the earth are pressed;
Damp earth weighs on her eyes;
Damp earth shuts out the skies.
My lady rests her heavy, heavy rest.
To see her slim perfection sweep,
Trembling impatiently,
With eager gaze at me!
Her feet spared little things that creep:
We've no more right, she'd say,
In this the earth than they.
Some remember it but to weep.
Her hand's slight weight was such,
Care lightened with its touch;
My lady sleeps her heavy, heavy sleep.
My day-dreams hovered round her brow;
Now o'er its perfect forms
Go softly real worms.
Stern death, it was a cruel blow,
To cut that sweet girl's life
Sharply, as with a knife.
Cursed life that lets me live and grow,
Just as a poisonous root,
From which rank blossoms shoot;
My lady's laid so very, very low.
Dread power, grief cries aloud, unjust,
To let her young life play
Its easy, natural way;
Then, with an unexpected thrust,
Strike out the life you lent,
Just when her feelings blent
With those around whom she saw trust
Her willing power to bless,
For their whole happiness;
My lady moulders into common dust.
Small birds twitter and peck the weeds
That wave above her head,
Shading her lowly bed:
Their brisk wings burst light globes of seeds,
Scattering the downy pride
Of dandelions, wide:
Speargrass stoops with watery beads:
The weight from its fine tips
Occasionally drips:
The bee drops in the mallow-bloom, and feeds.
About her window, at the dawn,
From the vine's crooked boughs
Birds chirupped an arouse:
Flies, buzzing, strengthened with the morn;
She'll not hear them again
At random strike the pane:
No more upon the close-cut lawn,
Her garment's sun-white hem
Bend the prim daisy's stem,
In walking forth to view what flowers are born.
No more she'll watch the dark-green rings
Stained quaintly on the lea,
To image fairy glee;
While thro' dry grass a faint breeze sings,
And swarms of insects revel
Along the sultry level:
No more will watch their brilliant wings,
Now lightly dip, now soar,
Then sink, and rise once more.
My lady's death makes dear these trivial things.
Within a huge tree's steady shade,
When resting from our walk,
How pleasant was her talk!
Elegant deer leaped o'er the glade,
Or stood with wide bright eyes,
Staring a short surprise:
Outside the shadow cows were laid,
Chewing with drowsy eye
Their cuds complacently:
Dim for sunshine drew near a milking-maid.
Rooks cawed and labored thro' the heat;
Each wing-flap seemed to make
Their weary bodies ache:
The swallows, tho' so very fleet,
Made breathless pauses there
At something in the air:
All disappeared: our pulses beat
Distincter throbs: then each
Turned and kissed, without speech,
She trembling, from her mouth down to her feet.
My head sank on her bosom's heave,
So close to the soft skin
I heard the life within.
My forehead felt her coolly breathe,
As with her breath it rose:
To perfect my repose
Her two arms clasped my neck. The eve
Spread silently around,
A hush along the ground,
And all sound with the sunlight seemed to leave.
By my still gaze she must have known
The mighty bliss that filled
My whole soul, for she thrilled,
Drooping her face, flushed, on my own;
I felt that it was such
By its light warmth of touch.
My lady was with me alone:
That vague sensation brought
More real joy than thought.
I am without her now, truly alone.
We had no heed of time: the cause
Was that our minds were quite
Absorbed in our delight,
Silently blessed. Such stillness awes,
And stops with doubt, the breath,
Like the mute doom of death.
I felt Time's instantaneous pause;
An instant, on my eye
Flashed all Eternity:
I started, as if clutched by wild beasts' claws,
Awakened from some dizzy swoon:
I felt strange vacant fears,
With singings in my ears,
And wondered that the pallid moon
Swung round the dome of night
With such tremendous might.
A sweetness, like the air of June,
Next paled me with suspense,
A weight of clinging sense
Some hidden evil would burst on me soon.
My lady's love has passed away,
To know that it is so
To me is living woe.
That body lies in cold decay,
Which held the vital soul
When she was my life's soul.
Bitter mockery it was to say
Our souls are as the same:
My words now sting like shame;
Her spirit went, and mine did not obey.
It was as if a fiery dart
Passed seething thro' my brain
When I beheld her lain
There whence in life she did not part.
Her beauty by degrees,
Sank, sharpened with disease:
The heavy sinking at her heart
Sucked hollows in her cheek,
And made her eyelids weak,
Tho' oft they'd open wide with sudden start.
The deathly power in silence drew
My lady's life away.
I watched, dumb with dismay,
The shock of thrills that quivered thro'
And tightened every limb:
For grief my eyes grew dim;
More near, more near, the moment grew.
O horrible suspense!
O giddy impotence!
I saw her fingers lax, and change their hue.
Her gaze, grown large with fate, was cast
Where my mute agonies
Made more sad her sad eyes:
Her breath caught with short plucks and fast:
Then one hot choking strain.
She never breathed again:
I had the look which was her last:
Even after breath was gone,
Her love one moment shone,
Then slowly closed, and hope for ever passed.
Silence seemed to start in space
When first the bell's harsh toll
Rang for my lady's soul.
Vitality was hell; her grace
The shadow of a dream:
Things then did scarcely seem:
Oblivion's stroke fell like a mace:
As a tree that's just hewn
I dropped, in a dead swoon,
And lay a long time cold upon my face.
Earth had one quarter turned before
My miserable fate
Pressed on with its whole weight.
My sense came back; and, shivering o'er,
I felt a pain to bear
The sun's keen cruel glare;
It seemed not warm as heretofore.
Oh, never more its rays
Will satisfy my gaze.
No more; no more; oh, never any more.
The Love of Beauty
John Boccaccio, love's own squire, deep sworn
In service to all beauty, joy, and rest,
When first the love-earned royal Mary press'd,
To her smooth cheek, his pale brows, passion-worn,
'Tis said, he, by her grace nigh frenzied, torn
By longings unattainable, address'd
To his chief friend most strange misgivings, lest
Some madness in his brain had thence been born.
The artist-mind alone can feel his meaning:
Such as have watched the battle-rank'd array
Of sunset, or the face of girlhood seen in
Line-blending twilight, with sick hope. Oh! they
May feed desire on some fond bosom leaning:
But where shall such their thirst of Nature stay?
The Subject in Art
The Love of Beauty
John Boccaccio, love's own squire, deep sworn
In service to all beauty, joy, and rest,
When first the love-earned royal Mary press'd,
To her smooth cheek, his pale brows, passion-worn,
'Tis said, he, by her grace nigh frenzied, torn
By longings unattainable, address'd
To his chief friend most strange misgivings, lest
Some madness in his brain had thence been born.
The artist-mind alone can feel his meaning:
Such as have watched the battle-rank'd array
Of sunset, or the face of girlhood seen in
Line-blending twilight, with sick hope. Oh! they
May feed desire on some fond bosom leaning:
But where shall such their thirst of Nature stay?
The Subject in Art
(No. 1.)If Painting and Sculpture delight us like other works of ingenuity, merely from the difficulties they surmount; like an egg in a bottle, a tree made out of stone, or a face made of pigment; and the pleasure we receive, is our wonder at the achievement; then, to such as so believe, this treatise is not written. But if, as the writer conceives, works of Fine Art delight us by the interest the objects they depict excite in the beholder, just as those objects in nature would excite his interest; if by any association of ideas in the one case, by the same in the other, without reference to the representations being other than the objects they represent:then, to such as so believe, the following upon SUBJECT is addressed. Whilst, at the same time, it is not disallowed that a subsequent pleasure may and does result, upon reflecting that the objects contemplated were the work of human ingenuity.
Now the subject to be treated, is the subject of Painter and Sculptor; what ought to be the nature of that subject, how far that subject may be drawn from past or present time with advantage, how far the subject may tend to confer upon its embodiment the title, High Art, how far the subject may tend to confer upon its embodiment the title Low Art; what is High Art, what is Low Art?
To begin then (at the end) with High Art. However we may differ as to facts, the principle will be readily granted, that High Art, i. e. Art, par excellence, Art, in its most exalted character, addresses pre-eminently the highest attributes of man, viz.: his mental and his moral faculties.
Low Art, or Art in its less exalted character, is that which addresses the less exalted attributes of man, viz.: his mere sensory faculties, without affecting the mind or heart, excepting through the volitional agency of the observer.
These definitions are too general and simple to be disputed; but before we endeavour to define more particularly, let us analyze the subject, and see what it will yield.
All the works which remain to us of the Ancients, and this appears somewhat remarkable, are, with the exception of those by incompetent artists, universally admitted to be High Art. Now do we afford them this high title, because all remnants of the antique world, by tempting a comparison between what was, and is, will set the mental faculties at work, and thus address the highest attributes of man? Or, as this is owing to the agency of the observer, and not to the subject represented, are we to seek for the cause in the subjects themselves!
Let us examine the subjects. They are mostly in sculpture; but this cannot be the cause, unless all modern sculpture be considered High Art. This is leaving out of the question in both ages, all works badly executed, and obviously incorrect, of which there are numerous examples both ancient and modern.
The subjects we find in sculpture are, in the round, mostly men or women in thoughtful or impassioned action: sometimes they are indeed acting physically; but then, as in the Jason adjusting his Sandal, acting by mechanical impulse, and thinking or looking in another direction. In relievo we have an historical combat, such as that between the Centaurs and Lapithæ; sometimes a group in conversation, sometimes a recitation of verses to the Lyre; a dance, or religious procession.
As to the first class in the round, as they seem to appeal to the intellectual, and often to the moral faculties, they are naturally, and according to the broad definition, works of High Art. Of the relievo, the historical combat appeals to the passions; and, being historical, probably to the intellect. The like may be said of the conversational groups, and lyrical recitation which follow. The dance appeals to the passions and the intellect; since the intellect recognises therein an order and design, her own planning; while the solemn, modest demeanour in the religious procession speaks to the heart and the mind. The same remarks will apply to the few ancient paintings we possess, always excluding such merely decorative works as are not fine art at all.
Thus it appears that all these works of the ancients might rationally have been denominated works of High Art; and here we remark the difference between the hypothetical or rational, and the historical account of facts; for though here is reason enough why ancient art might have been denominated High Art, that it was so denominated on this account, is a position not capable of proof: whereas, in all probability, the true account of the matter runs thusThe works of antiquity awe us by their time-hallowed presence; the mind is sent into a serious contemplation of things; and, the subject itself in nowise contravening, we attribute all this potent effect to the agency of the subject before us, and High Art, it becomes then and for ever, with all such as follow its cut. But then as this was so named, not from the abstract cause, but from a result and effect; when a new work is produced in a similar spirit, but clothed in a dissimilar matter, and the critics have to settle to what class of art it belongs,then is the new work dragged up to fight with the old one, like the poor beggar Irus in front of Ulysses; then are they turned over and applied, each to each, like the two triangles in Euclid; and then, if they square, fit and tally in every quarterwith the nude to the draped in the one, as the nude to the draped in the otherwith the standing to the sitting in the one, as the standing to the sitting in the otherwith the fat to the lean in the one, as the fat to the lean in the otherwith the young to the old in the one, as the young to the old in the otherwith head to body, as head to body; and nose to knee, as nose to knee, &c. &c., (and the critics have done a great deal)then is the work oracularly pronounced one of High Art; and the obsequious artist is pleased to consider it is.
But if, per contra, as in the former case, the works are not to be literally reconciled, though wrought in the self-same spirit; then this unfortunate creature of genius is degraded into a lower rank of art; and the artist, if he have faith in the learned, despairs; or, if he have none, he swears. But listen, an artist speaks: If I have genius to produce a work in the true spirit of high art, and yet am so ignorant of its principles, that I scarce know whereon the success of the work depends, and scarcely whether I have succeeded or no; with this ignorance and this power, what needs your knowledge or your reasoning, seeing that nature is all-sufficient, and produces a painter as she produces a plant? To the artist (the last of his race), who spoke thus, it is answered, that science is not meant for him, if he like it not, seeing he can do without it, and seeing, moreover, that with it alone he can never do. Science here does not make; it unmakes, wonderingly to find the making of what God has madeof what God has made through the poet, leading him blindly by a path which he has not known; this path science follows slowly and in wonder. But though science is not to make the artist, there is no reason in nature that the artist reject it. Still, science is properly the birthright of the critic; 'tis his all in all. It shows him poets, painters, sculptors, his fellow men, often his inferiors in their want of it, his superiors in the ability to do what he cannot do; it teaches him to love them as angels bringing him food which he cannot attain, and to venerate their works as a gift from the Creator.