Man and wife, through the chilling rain,
They walkt to the sculptor's house again;
And the sculptor went upon his way
Just with the heart of yesterday,

As though, in a kind of somnambulism,
A priest had toucht with the sacred chrism
The lady given of God to be

Supreme in her grace and royalty,

And, waking, his brain refus'd to keep

The thought of what he had done in sleep.

Many a year had past away

Since Cecco and Lotta us'd to play

Together 'neath that blue sky of theirs,

And blest and were blest in their lovely pray'rs :

I think you never would recognise

The baby lovers in any wise

In the quiet woman who goes to-day

Deep-soul'd, deep-eyed, on her daily way,
And the thin, dark man who, people say,
Is that strange Francesco da Fiesole,

Poor fool, who aspires to the artist's meed
But none has seen or shall see, indeed,
The fruit of the travail of his brain-
Thinking and toiling all in vain.

Fair was the woman's face, and sweet
Her voice, and swift were her noiseless feet,
And kind her hands; but her husband knew
Full little of her the fair and true.

To work when the dawn brake golden-fair;
At work when the stars of night shone there :
Forwatcht, forwearied at night and worn,
Yet eager to meet his work at morn.

Sometimes she whisper'd, half in fear,
"Rest for a little while, my dear."

But he "For the soul that God has blest
Only in perfect work is rest.”

"Yet rest is the truest work sometimes!
Out of the silence grow new rimes;

Out of the cool where shadows brood
Leaps up the soul in its strength renew'd."
Then he smil'd, and the smile said wordlessly,
"Woman, what have I to do with thee?"

Hours, days, years, swept on, it may be,-
Which he knew not and car'd not, he,—
Art knows not Time but Eternity-
When a wonderful vision, great and sweet,
Came in the silence his soul to greet,
And, daz'd by the glory's sharp excess,
He fell in a deep unconsciousness,

With a cry that struck on her ear alone :
And the woman found him lying prone,

With his head at the base of a block of stone,
A shapeless, loveless thing he wrought,

A cenotaph of his wondrous thought.

She lifted him into the outside air,

And its breeze crept in and out of his hair,
Touching his face with a light caress,
As he lay enwrapt in the silentness.

And, just as the day had kiss'd the night,
He woke, and, with wide eyes full of light,
Lookt up to her face and murmur'd he,
"Thank God that at last through the mists I see
The star of my life arise on me.”

Oh, then the delight of sweet surprise

Glow'd in the depths of her tender eyes;

And something fairer than laughter lit

Her face with a smile most exquisite.

But not for her is that gladness deep,
And not for her are the words that leap
From his spirit's depths-"My glorious Art,
Who hast shrin'd thyself within my heart,

Pardon the weakness of earth that shrank
When the fiery draught of thy life I drank,

And teach my spirit to bear the stress

And awe of thy terrible loveliness:

As when, in the earth-sprung bush there glow'd,
And yet consum'd not its frail abode,
The awful light of the living God."

He rose with a fresh-nerv'd energy,
And a new-born life within his eye-
"Oh, deep in my heart of hearts is writ
'Though the vision tarry, wait for it." "

So, when she brought him a wine-fill'd cup,
With flashing eyes he rais'd it up,

And dasht the red wine upon the floor,

For the strength of his hope sustain'd him more.

And, laughing, he said, "the gods will bless
My work with an infinite success;

For the wine I have here pour'd out shall be
Libation paid unto them by me."

But a tear was in the woman's eye,

And the thought swept over her mournfully,
As she lookt where the red stream slowly flow'd,
That its antitype was his heart's best blood.

She watcht outside the door all night,

Nor went away till the dawn of light;

And ceaselessly on her ear there broke
The ring of her husband's chisel-stroke.

And at dawn when, weary in heart and limb,
She carried the morning meal to him,

The ground was strewn with fragments white,
Where his hand had hewn at the block all night,
The block that seem'd to her eyes to grow
More shapeless and loveless at every blow.

But she saw his eyes as the eyes of a seer, And he spoke, and her heart stood still to hear, grows and grows beneath my touch

66 It O Art, thank God that I love thee much!

Not in the dull coarse clay will I shrine
The thought new-born from this soul of mine-
The stately marble's purity

At once shall its glorious temple be.

The beautiful wonder grows and grows―
I carve her as on my sight she rose,
Perfection and light the ministers

To wait on each motion and look of hers.

Ah, no mere lady of perfect mould
In her shall the gazer's eye behold;