What charlatans in this later day Beat at the gates of Art! Each with his trick of speech or brush,— Forgetting, that apart From all the brawling of an age, Its feverish fantasy, She waits, who only unto Time The soul of Art sets free! God’s handmaid Beauty,—whose touch rounds A dewdrop or a world,— God-sprung when first through Chaos’ night The morning wings unfurled; Beauty,—who still the secret gives Whispered the ages through,— Recurrent as the flush of dawn, Essential as the dew. O babblers of some surer guide!— Knowledge goes changing by; Caprice may bloom its little hour, And creeds are born and die; Still Melos on her worshippers Looks with calm-lidded eyes; Still Helen, though Troy sleeps in dust, Smiles through the centuries; Still she who gleaned on Judah’s plain Love in her sheaves doth bind; Still, down the glades of Arden, dance The feet of Rosalind.
The Deathless
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