Art

            I

    Yes! Beauty still rebels!

    Our dreams like clouds disperse:

      She dwells

    In agate, marble, verse.

    No false constraint be thine!

    But, for right walking, choose

      The fine,

    The strict cothurnus, Muse.

    Vainly ye seek to escape

    The toil! The yielding phrase

      Ye shape

    Is clay, not chrysoprase.

    And all in vain ye scorn

    That seeming ease which ne'er

      Was born

    Of aught but love and care.

    Take up the sculptor's tool!

    Recall the gods that die

      To rule

    In Parian o'er the sky.

    For Beauty still rebels!

    Our dreams like clouds disperse:

      She dwells

    In agate, marble, verse.

            II

    When Beauty from the sea,

    With breasts of whiter rose

      Than we

    Behold on earth, arose.

    Naked thro' Time returned

    The Bliss of Heaven that day,

      And burned

    The dross of earth away.

    Kings at her splendour quailed.

    For all his triple steel

      She haled

    War at her chariot-wheel.

    The rose and lily bowed

    To cast, of odour sweet

      A cloud

    Before her wandering feet.

    And from her radiant eyes

    There shone on soul and sense

      The skies'

    Divine indifference.

    O, mortal memory fond!

    Slowly she passed away

      Beyond

    The curling clouds of day.

    _Return_, we cry, _return_,

    Till in the sadder light

      We learn

    That she was infinite.

    The Dream that from the sea

    With breasts of whiter rose

      Than we

    Behold on earth, arose.

            III

    Take up the sculptor's tool!

    Becall the dreams that die

      To rule

    In Parian o'er the sky;

    And kings that not endure

    In bronze to re-ascend

      Secure

    Until the world shall end.

    Poet, let passion sleep

    Till with the cosmic rhyme

      You keep

    Eternal tone and time,

    By rule of hour and flower,

    By strength of stern restraint

      And power

    To fail and not to faint.

    The task is hard to learn

    While all the songs of Spring

      Return

    Along the blood and sing.

    Yet hear--from her deep skies,

    How Art, for all your pain,

      Still cries

    _Ye must be born again!_

    Reject the wreath of rose,

    Take up the crown of thorn

      That shows

    To-night a child is born.

    The far immortal face

    In chosen onyx fine

      Enchase,

    Delicate line by line.

    Strive with Carrara, fight

    With Parian, till there steal

      To light

    Apollo's pure profile.

    Set the great lucid form

    Free from its marble tomb

      To storm

    The heights of death and doom.

    Take up the sculptor's tool!

    Recall the gods that die

      To rule

    In Parian o'er the sky,

The title in his collected works Vol 1 1913 is followed by(IMITATED FROM DE BANVILLE AND GAUTIER)