Mirage

Here hangs at last, you see, my row

Of sketches,— all I have to show

Of one enchanted summer spent

In sweet laborious content,

At little‘ Sconset by the moors,

With the sea thundering by its doors,

Its grassy streets, and gardens gay

With hollyhocks and salvia.

And here upon the easel yet,

With the last brush of paint still wet,

( Showing how inspiration toils ),

Is one where the white surf-line boils

Along the sand, and the whole sea

Lifts to the skyline, just to be

The wondrous background from whose verge

Of blue on blue there should emerge

This miracle.

One day of days

I strolled the silent path that strays

Between the moorlands and the beach

From Siasconset, till you reach

Tom Nevers Head, the lone last land

That fronts the ocean, lone and grand

As when the Lord first bade it be

For a surprise and mystery.

A sailless sea, a cloudless sky,

The level lonely moors, and I

The only soul in all that vast

Of color made intense to last!

The small white sea-birds piping near;

The great soft moor-winds; and the dear

Bright sun that pales each crest to jade,

Where gulls glint fishing unafraid.

Here man, the godlike, might have gone

With his deep thought, on that wild dawn

When the first sun came from the sea,

Glowing and kindling the world to be,

While time began and joy had birth,—

No wilder sweeter spot on earth!

As I sat there and mused ( the way

We painters waste our time, you say! )

On the sheer loneliness and strength

Whence life must spring, there came at length

Conviction of the helplessness

Of earth alone to ban or bless.

I saw the huge unhuman sea;

I heard the drear monotony

Of the waves beating on the shore

With heedless, futile strife and roar,

Without a meaning or an aim.

And then a revelation came,

In subtle, sudden, lovely guise,

Like one of those soft mysteries

Of Indian jugglers, who evoke

A flower for you out of smoke.

I knew sheer beauty without soul

Could never be perfection's goal,

Nor satisfy the seeking mind

With all it longs for and must find

One day. The lovely things that haunt

Our senses with an aching want,

And move our souls, are like the fair

Lost garments of a soul somewhere.

Nature is naught, if not the veil

Of some great good that must prevail

And break in joy, as woods of spring

Break into song and blossoming.

But what makes that great goodness start

Within ourselves? When leaps the heart

With gladness, only then we know

Why lovely Nature travails so,—

Why art must persevere and pray

In her incomparable way.

In all the world the only worth

Is human happiness; its dearth

The darkest ill. Let joyance be,

And there is God's sufficiency,—

Such joy as only can abound

Where the heart's comrade has been found.

That was my thought. And then the sea

Broke in upon my revery

With clamorous beauty,— the superb

Eternal noun that takes no verb

But love. The heaven of dove-like blue

Bent o'er the azure, round and true

As magic sphere of crystal glass,

Where faith sees plain the pageant pass

Of things unseen. So I beheld

The sheer sky-arches domed and belled,

As if the sea were the very floor

Of heaven where walked the gods of yore

In Plato's imagery, and I

Uplifted saw their pomps go by.

The House of space and time grew tense

As if with rapture's imminence,

When truth should be at last made clear,

And the great worth of life appear;

While I, a worshipper at the shrine,

For very longing grew divine,

Borne upward on earth's ecstasy,

And welcomed by the boundless sky.

A mighty prescience seemed to brood

Over that tenuous solitude

Yearning for form, till it became

Vivid as dream and live as flame,

Through magic art could never match,

The vision I have tried to catch,—

All earth's delight and meaning grown

A lyric presence loved and known.

How otherwise could time evolve

Young courage, or the high resolve,

Or gladness to assuage and bless

The soul's austere great loneliness,

Than by providing her somehow

With sympathy of hand and brow,

And bidding her at last go free,

Companioned through eternity?

So there appeared before my eyes,

In a beloved, familiar guise,

A vivid, questing human face

In profile, scanning heaven for grace,

Up-gazing there against the blue

With eyes that heaven itself shone through;

The lips soft-parted, half in prayer,

Half confident of kindness there;

A brow like Plato's made for dream

In some immortal Academe,

And tender as a happy girl's;

A full dark head of clustered curls

Round as an emperor's, where meet

Repose and ardor, strong and sweet,

Distilling from a mind unmarred

The glory of her rapt regard.

So eager Mary might have stood,

In love's adoring attitude,

And looked into the angel's eyes

With faith and fearlessness, all wise

In soul's unfaltering innocence,

Sure in her woman's supersense

Of things only the humble know.

My vision looks forever so.

In other years when men shall say,

“What was the painter's meaning, pray?

Why all this vast of sea and space,

Just to enframe a woman's face?”

Here is the pertinent reply,

“What better use for earth and sky?”

The great archangel passed that way

Illuming life with mystic ray.

Not Lippo's self nor Raphael

Had lovelier, realer things to tell

Than I, beholding far away

How all the melting rose and gray

Upon the purple sea-line leaned

About that head that intervened.

How real was she? Ah, my friend,

In art the fact and fancy blend

Past telling. All the painter's task

Is with the glory. Need we ask

The tulips breaking through the mould

To their untarnished age of gold,

Whence their ideals were derived

That have so gloriously survived?

Flowers and painters both must give

The hint they have received, to live,—

Spend without stint the joy and power

That lurk in each propitious hour,—

Yet leave the why untold — God's way.

My sketch is all I have to say.