THE IVORY PORTRAIT AND OTHER VERSES

This tender profile that you scan— And oh, it breathes of beauty’s dower!— A woman’s fingers well may span— So small its space within her bower!— The golden circlet that enfolds it. Heart of a child, brain of a man And many a perfect summer hour Kept tryst for you, in loving plan To consecrate this ivory flower, As your dear thought to-day beholds it.

In the North, not the cruelly northernmost North, But close to the voice of bright rills And the beckoning hands of great hills, A child was in gladness brought forth: And he said to himself, as the heart of a man-child may say things, “I take me this earth and these beautiful rocks for my playthings. “I will pinch up the rocks that are nearest the sky, And make of them rabbits and men And maybe an angel, and then— When the Sunday people pass by, Some morning quite still, except for the organ playing, The rabbits and men will hear what the angel is saying.” And as others, the man kept a part of the word Of the child. In brave bronze and fair stone His hand ever wrought to make known Whatsoever his heart had heard Of beauty or truth; in homely or foreign places, Interpreting ever the wonderful message of faces.

On the terrace, a marvelous flower uncloses; It dances, it glances, it sways In a thousand bright ways: It reminds you of stars, yet of roses! Come see! On the terrace, a lovely new blossom is showing; ’Tis twining, and shining, and oh, Did ever you hear or know Of a blossom with golden hair growing? Come see! Were ever you told of a floweret, singing? With chatter, and pattering feet, And dowered with dimple sweet, With laughter like faery-bells ringing? Come see!

Since first I saw your golden head, Full ten fleet years, O flower, have fled, Bitter and bright together sped! Dear child, now to the maiden grown, Could I but loose from some fair stone An angel-likeness, all your own! Yet marble were too cold for you, And bronze were dark and old for you; In ivory, then, I mould for you Your portrait, flower-child, now maiden grown.

The shining rose called Pearl-and-Gold Shall never show In highest light, Dissolving into softest fold A purer glow Of warmer white: O ivory, ivory, The glimmering robe of cloistered nun, Kneeling in bliss At vesper bells, No fairer radiance hath won Than even this The ivory tells: O ivory, ivory, And so the beasts whereof we speak May still possess— Ah me, who knows? The very loveliness we seek In nun’s white dress, In glowing rose! O ivory, ivory.

In the far eastern East, They say, A vast forest beast Went mad, one day: Nor was he among beast mere catlike King, But rather Councillor, a kindlier thing; Yet mad, March-mad was he As hare or man might be; Else why, all uncontrollable, assail With fierce trunk flying as a flail, The sacred person of her Majesty’s Mail? Ah, who shall guess what dim far eastern spells Had traitorous crept to slime the mighty cells Of that large brain, routing forever thence Its recent tenant, mild Obedience? Was it long-smouldering, sudden-flaming hate For Man, the master of the dumb brute’s fate? We only know, That day, before the dusk, Man laid him low, Hide, trump, and tusk.

And now, this monarch means, for you and me, But this, a hand’s breadth of fine ivory, In tint and texture exquisite indeed, Responding to the cunning carver’s need To shape a tale of saints on missal cover, To celebrate the Mourning Mother’s grace, To mould forever for some eager lover The perfect flower of his lady’s face; Nay more, for love of father, mother, friend, To frame a fond remembrance; to enscroll A fleeting glimpse, a vista without end, That mortal mystery, a maiden’s soul.

How Leonardo would have loved to paint This profile of young saint Within its aureole of tender gold; To search each petal-fold Of lips, for paler or for deeper rose, To draw the straight, fine nose, To linger musing on this broad-arched brow, Even as I do now! In this mysterious modelling of the cheek, His watchful eye would seek These half-tints delicate, roses and pearls That are a little girl’s; And many a sculptor of the time, as he, Named “of Fiesole,” Or he whose living, breathing “Singing Boys” Still make their joyful noise; Or he, far-famed, whose unforgotten hands Wrought for all lands To know and love in warm Carrara stone, A Lady called “Unknown,”— Large craftsmen of the re-born centuries— How passionately these Had told their vision of this little head, Sweetly interpreted! And if those liberal golden yesterdays Would well have sung the praise Of this pure candid profile’s lovely line, No less, these days of mine: For oh, that godlike sculptor lately here, He whom these hills hold dear, Would fain have shaped from it, as coin of Greece, Another masterpiece; But ere the perfect moment of these things, Night came, and the dark wings; And what he might have wrought of loveliness We know not, we but guess!

Meanwhile, the maiden from her model’s throne Lists the brown bees intone, Antiphonal to lady-wasps that pass Across the north-light’s glass; A squirrel quarrels with the elm-tree’s leaves; Beneath the studio eaves The circling swifts dispute, in serried flight The bluebirds’ manor right; Within, high images of knight and priest, Girded for old-time feast, And warriors of to-day, and lights o’ the law Contrive their air of awe; Damsels fair-filleted, in chiton trim, Advance with symbols dim, While Fia parts wide silences to speak, “Are all the virtues Greek?” The sculptor, pacing, plies his antique art As in a world apart, Since many a message yet must go and come ’Twixt master eye and thumb; And artists aye must meditate at ease Their chosen mysteries, While only little sitters ever know That sitter’s hour, how slow! Ah, guiled by gazing into purple hills, And saying “Daffodils,” Or sweet short story of the Lucy-star, Or tale of “Lochinvar,” That hour, an earthly hour, not long will stay! Fia will flee away Into the sunset, carolling, “Oh when,— When shall I come again?”

At the edge of the uttermost West, Where the worst may brother the best, Far, far in the West, behold, Men said there were pots of the gold: Obeying an ancient behest, A cry of the blood in their veins, Men marched to the uttermost West, All for gold: In the sun and the snow and the rains, They sang and shivered and burned, Nor faltered at peaks or plains, All for gold: And whether men died, or returned With a tale of their wealth or their woe, There were always others who yearned Unceasingly, Westward Ho!

Gold, gold, what is your hold, Untold by the sages? Have you stolen, to master men’s dreams, From the sun, his far-shining beams? Have you gathered the questioned glow Of the buttercups, long ago? Are you strong because you may wear Spun brightness of children’s hair? Gold, gold, what is your hold On the heart of the ages?

If gold be strong like iron, yet may wear Spun radiance, as of a child’s bright hair, Then bid the tender craft of Florentine Choose golden strands from Californian river, And weld and wind them as for crown of queen, To crown this carven ivory forever, Framing it, Nor shaming it, Since gold is strong like iron, yet may wear Spun radiance, as of remembered hair.

A man might hide beneath two hands Held close and closer side by side This ivory portrait as it stands, With what it owns of grace or pride: But all the memories it imparts Of Sylvia—all these, we know, Could ne’er be hidden in two hearts, And who, ah, who would wish them so?

I saw thee in thy little shift, And why I grieved I knew not then; How should I know Thou wert to go, Yea, even so, After a while, among the stars again? And when I viewed thee girded thus, With coronal of shining hair, Did I surmise, Such is the guise, In Paradise, Of new souls choosing garlands they shall wear? I saw thee in thy little shift; How guessed I that such vesture white Was sign to tell, And passing well, Like a clear bell, Of travel-garment, and of lonely flight? Yet after I beheld thee, too, My soul had sorrow all that day; All night I dreamed, Weeping, meseemed; Something I deemed Most beautiful had made me weep and pray. I saw thee in thy little shift; Adown my cheek ran rain of tears; “The old, old pain,” My heart was fain So to explain: My heart knew not, ’twas pain of coming years.

Hear now my song to Sylvia’s eyes, Pure as God’s mercies glowing, That shine on me from Paradise. So deep, like seas! So blue, like skies! With mirth and love o’erflowing! Hear now my song to Sylvia’s eyes. And oh, their look of bright surprise, Like look of stars, fresh-growing, That shine on me from Paradise! Fringed pools, holding nor lures nor lies, Yet wistful with foreknowing; Hear now my song to Sylvia’s eyes. Fair eyelids fall; fair Springtime flies; And fairer stars are showing, That shine on me from Paradise. O fairer stars, in angel-wise Ye watch me, coming, going: Hear now my song to Sylvia’s eyes, That shine on me from Paradise!

Would I knew the fairer flower— Rose or lily, lily or rose, Here to hold in my heart’s bower! Rose-Marie has world-old power; Sovranly her bright blush shows: Would I knew the fairer flower! Sylvia’s lily look would shower All my soul with grace that grows, Here to hold in my heart’s bower: Each most blest! In each, her dower Of loveliness or gleams or glows: Would I knew the fairer flower— Ah, but never shall my tower Watch that fairer bloom unclose, Here to hold in my heart’s bower! Clouds shall lift, as clouds shall lower; I chose not—the heavens chose. Would I knew the fairer flower Here to hold in my heart’s bower!

I saw God in His sky, I spoke with Him; The shape was beautiful, and very great and dim: I saw God in His sky, I spoke with Him; There was no passer-by. And I had no more fear, He bent His head, He listened tenderly unto the prayer I said: And I had no more fear, He bent His head, That I might know Him near. Oh, it was long ago, And I was small; I have not, every day, always remembered all: Oh, it was long ago, And I was small; Nor more could ever know.

Sisters twain are Grief and Bliss: “Blessed are they that mourn,” ’twas said, And, “For they shall be comforted:” Yet blessed not alone for this! But oh, enriched by gift of Grief, By treasure out of Sorrow’s store, They shall distil from Pain’s long lore Balm for another’s sweet relief. By falling waters, roses stray; Thou, whose heart’s garden knoweth rue, Shalt find therein, in season due, The perfect rose to give away.

They are little, but oh, they are near, These things unforgotten and dear, Now writ, for remembering here: The daily and dutiful grace Of a delicate flower face, And the dimple, its hiding-place; A tress and a glance and a glove, A lilting of laughter and love, And the silvery wing of a dove; Yet these have their reason and rhyme No less than the bluebird’s song, Though frail as a bluebell’s chime, Once heard as we happened along. Things frail as a bluebell’s chime— How often they last a long time— For we lay them away on high shelves That the great world may seldom behold, And we leave still a part of ourselves With our love in each white, white fold. There is nothing of large intent, Except as you know what is meant; The way that an eyebrow went, With a merry or pensive air, And the light that played over her hair As she stood one day by your chair; And writ for remembering here, These things unforgotten and dear; They are little, but oh, they are near!

O little lonely cavalier, I met thee in the deepening day, Riding the road where yesteryear Thou and thy namesake oft would stray. Thy mantle blue wore pensive fold; There lacked but gleam of helm and lance To bid mine eyes in thee behold Again the sainted Maid of France: For thine was look of those who face An unexpected destiny; Around thee in that woodland place Lay aureole of reverie. And steadfastly thy pony kept The russet path ’neath russet boughs, Nor fretted when the squirrel swept Aloft his plume of high carouse. Almost, almost I wondered then If this were tapestry, or dream, Or if I walked the ways of men, And verily by woodland stream. O rider, thou who rid’st beside The autumn hush, thou art young to know What stillness comes when one shall ride Where two were lately wont to go. The Voices that thy spirit heard Borne on the autumn’s tender breeze Were ne’er the notes of autumn bird Revisiting past revelries. The heart’s quick dew was in thine eyes That overflowed ere thou couldst speak; Nor shall those holy drops chastise The rose of morning from thy cheek: But rather shall thy maiden look Henceforth a deeper radiance wear, As if it more immediate took Its sweetness, from a purer air; As if with grief thou couldst not dwell All unacquainted as before, As if Hope’s rose-wreath held as well Some lovely leaf from Memory’s lore. And they who dream of voices flown, And they who dwell with Voices near, Shall nevermore ride all alone, Though solitary, cavalier!