Oh young and richly gifted! born to claim No vulgar place amidst the sons of fame; With shapes of beauty haunting thee like dreams, And skill to realise Art's loftiest themes; How wearisome to thee the task must be To copy these coarse features painfully; Faded by time and paled by care, to trace The dim complexion of this homely face; And lend to a bent brow and anxious eye Thy patient toil, thine Art's high mastery. Yet by that Art, almost methinks divine, By touch and colour and the skilful line Which at a stroke can strengthen and refine, And mostly by the invisible influence Of thine own spirit, gleams of thought and sense Shoot o'er the care-worn forehead, and illume The heavy eye, and break the leaden gloom: Even as the sun-beams on the rudest ground Fling their illusive glories wide around, And make the dullest scene of nature bright By the reflexion of their own pure light. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE ODES I, 9. TO WINTER by QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS CITY LYRICS by NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS JUNGLE by RICHMOND GEORGE ANTHONY HOARFROST by STELLA PFEIFFER BAISCH SONNETS OF MANHOOD: 5. ETERNAL by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) EDITH CAVELL by LAURENCE BINYON |