That might from nature have been learnt in the hour

20

When the lone shepherd sees the morning spread

Upon the mountains. Look at her, whoe'er
Thou be that, kindling with a poet's soul,
Hast loved the painter's true Promethean craft
Intensely from Imagination take

25

The treasure, what mine eyes behold see thou, Even though the Atlantic ocean roll between.

30

A silver line, that runs from brow to crown And in the middle parts the braided hair, Just serves to show how delicate a soil The golden harvest grows in; and those eyes, Soft and capacious as a cloudless sky Whose azure depth their colour emulates, Must needs be conversant with upward looks, Prayer's voiceless service; but now, seeking nought

And shunning nought, their own peculiar life Of motion they renounce, and with the head Partake its inclination towards earth

35

In humble grace, and quiet pensiveness Caught at the point where it stops short of sadness.

40

Offspring of soul-bewitching Art, make me Thy confidant! say, whence derived that air Of calm abstraction? Can the ruling thought Be with some lover far away, or one Crossed by misfortune, or of doubted faith? 45 Inapt conjecture! Childhood here, a moon Crescent in simple loveliness serene, Has but approached the gates of womanhood, Not entered them; her heart is yet unpierced By the blind Archer-god; her fancy free:

50

The fount of feeling, if unsought elsewhere,

Will not be found.

Her right hand, as it lies Across the slender wrist of the left arm Upon her lap reposing, holds-but mark How slackly, for the absent mind permits No firmer grasp a little wild-flower, joined As in a posy, with a few pale ears

55

Of yellowing corn, the same that overtopped
And in their common birthplace sheltered it
"Till they were plucked together; a blue flower
Called by the thrifty husbandman a weed; 61
But Ceres, in her garland, might have worn
That ornament, unblamed. The floweret, held
In scarcely conscious fingers, was, she knows,
(Her Father told her so) in youth's gay dawn 65
Her Mother's favourite; and the orphan Girl,
In her own dawn--a dawn less gay and bright,
Loves it, while there in solitary peace
She sits, for that departed Mother's sake.
-Not from a source less sacred is derived 70
(Surely I do not err) that pensive air

Of calm abstraction through the face diffused
And the whole person.

Words have something told More than the pencil can, and verily More than is needed, but the precious Art Forgives their interference-Art divine, That both creates and fixes, in despite

75

Of Death and Time, the marvels it hath wrought.

Strange contrasts have we in this world of

ours!

That posture, and the look of filial love Thinking of past and gone, with what is left Dearly united, might be swept away

80

From this fair Portrait's fleshy Archetype,
Even by an innocent fancy's slightest freak
Banished, nor ever, haply, be restored
To their lost place, or meet in harmony
So exquisite; but here do they abide,
Enshrined for ages. Is not then the Art
Godlike, a humble branch of the divine,
In visible quest of immortality,

85

90

Stretched forth with trembling hope?-In every realm,

95

From high Gibraltar to Siberian plains,
Thousands, in each variety of tongue
That Europe knows, would echo this appeal;
One above all, a Monk who waits on God
In the magnific Convent built of yore
To sanctify the Escurial palace. He-
Guiding, from cell to cell and room to room,
A British Painter (eminent for truth
In character, and depth of feeling, shown
By labours that have touched the hearts of
kings,

100

And are endeared to simple cottagers)-
Came, in that service, to a glorious work,
Our Lord's Last Supper, beautiful as when first
The appropriate Picture, fresh from Titian's

hand,

105

Graced the Refectory: and there, while both Stood with eyes fixed upon that masterpiece, The hoary Father in the Stranger's ear Breathed out these words :-"Here daily do we sit,

109

Thanks given to God for daily bread, and here Pondering the mischiefs of these restless times, And thinking of my Brethren, dead, dispersed, Or changed and changing, I not seldom gaze Upon this solemn Company unmoved

By shock of circumstance, or lapse of years, 115

Until I cannot but believe that they—
They are in truth the Substance, we the
Shadows."

So spake the mild Jeronymite, his griefs
Melting away within him like a dream
Ere he had ceased to gaze, perhaps to speak: 120
And I, grown old, but in a happier land,
Domestic Portrait! have to verse consigned
In thy calm presence those heart-moving words:
Words that can soothe, more than they agitate;
Whose spirit, like the angel that went down 125
Into Bethesda's pool, with healing virtue
Informs the fountain in the human breast
Which by the visitation was disturbed.

-But why this stealing tear? Companion mute,

On thee I look, not sorrowing; fare thee well, My Song's Inspirer, once again farewell!'

1834.

131

XLI.

THE FOREGOING SUBJECT RESUMED.

AMONG a grave fraternity of Monks,
For One, but surely not for One alone,
Triumphs, in that great work, the Painter's
skill,

Humbling the body, to exalt the soul;
Yet representing, amid wreck and wrong 5

The pile of buildings composing the palace and convent of San Lorenzo, has, in common usage, lost its proper name in that of the Escurial, a village at the foot of the hill upon which the splendid edifice, built by Philip the Second, stands. It need scarcely be added that Wilkie is the painter alluded to.

And dissolution and decay, the warm
And breathing life of flesh, as if already
Clothed with impassive majesty, and graced
With no mean earnest of a heritage

Assigned to it in future worlds. Thou, too, 10
With thy memorial flower, meek Portraiture!
From whose serene companionship I passed
Pursued by thoughts that haunt me still; thou
also-

Though but a simple object, into light

Called forth by those affections that endear 15 The private hearth; though keeping thy sole

seat

In singleness, and little tried by time,
Creation, as it were, of yesterday-
With a congenial function art endued
For each and all of us, together joined
In course of nature under a low roof
By charities and duties that proceed
Out of the bosom of a wiser vow.
To a like salutary sense of awe

20

Or sacred wonder, growing with the power 25 Of meditation that attempts to weigh,

In faithful scales, things and their opposites, Can thy enduring quiet gently raise

30

A household small and sensitive,--whose love,
Dependent as in part its blessings are
Upon frail ties dissolving or dissolved
On earth, will be revived, we trust, in heaven."1

1834.

1 In the class entitled "Musings," in Mr. Southey's Minor Poems, is one upon his own miniature Picture, taken in childhood, and another upon a landscape painted by Gaspar Poussin. It is possible that every word of the above verses, though similar in subject, might have been written had the author been unacquainted with those beautiful effusions of poetic sentiment. But, for his own satisfaction, he must be