RAFAELE D'URBINO by AUGUSTA DAVIES WEBSTER

THE misty vapour of the incense floats
Heavy with vague perfume
Through all the dim aisle's mellow gloom,
And the grand melody of full-voiced notes
Swells splendid sadness through the massive dome,
Peals out in solemn symphonies
Deep with the awfulness of death,
Then in a sobbing cadence dies
To a low mournful breath,
As if far angel-voices called him home:
And through the throng there sighs a stifled wail
Of parting blessings and of men that weep.
But he is calm and pale
In a rapt sleep.

And there he lies,
A dream of beauty in the pride of youth,
Something of that which never dies
Of Inspiration's ever sacred truth,
Whose glorious seal was on him set,
Rests dovelike yet
On the sweet sternness of the marble face,
And still some trace
Of that great spirit lingers on the brow
It thrills not now.
He waits, a silent guest
In the time-hallowed twilight pile,
Taking his solemn rest.
On his still lips a trancèd smile
Beams awful saintliness, as though there gleamed
Upon his soul from the great heaven above
All that mysterious loveliness of love
His glorious life had dreamed
More clearly now revealed and more divine,
And all his being were a God-filled shrine
Holy with visions of God's sacred things
Seen fainter once in his imaginings;
And highest worlds of beauty lay outspread
Before him dead.

Speak not his praise,
Lo, the great marvel of his last great days
Breathes from the walls a nobler voice than thine,
And myriads' enraptured gaze
Giveth sure-witnessed silent sign
Of the long fame the future shall afford
Better than thy weak word;
But gaze thy fill
On the half human, half celestial grace,
The shapes of beauty on that magic space,
And the grand shadowing on high
Of man-enshrined Divinity,
Until there thrill,
Swelling with worship through thy heart
The sweetness and the majesty of art.

Priest of the beautiful, ah! shall indeed
So soon the craving thankless dust
Hold thee in its dread trust
And must the mystic spirit of thy creed
Lose its most pure interpreter in thee?
Ah! can it be
That thy rich pencil never more
Shall map in glories thine angelic soul
With its pure depths of saintly lore?
Shall shape no more 'neath thine inspired control
Those holy types with angel-might to thaw
Sad world-chilled spirits from Self's frozen sea,
Whose icy barriers round them press
And sun them from the memory of earth's strife
Into a joy of loving awe,
A half forgetfulness of life
In the eternal meanings rife
In their deep loveliness.

Till even thou art lessened in their light,
And they, outshapings of thy will,
Dim with their radiance from the dazzled sight
The moment's memory of thy skill,
And have a being of their own:
And such to thy large mind had seemed in truth
The grandest homage to thy genius shown,
Thou artist-worshipper of truth:
But not the less thy well remembered name
Shall ring well-loved in many a far-off clime
And the long after years chime out thy fame,
Noble amid the noblest sons of Time.

Ah! how they weep,
And he is placid as were not for him
The fast-rained scalding drops that make eyes dim:
Their bursts of sorrow wild and deep
Break not his sleep,
The heavy mass of sable fold
Stirs not upon his breast,
The silenced heart is cold.
How fair he is in that last rest,
Call it not sad,
Ye mourn and weep as sore distressed,
His face is glad.
Vex not with cries his spirit back from God;
In little space his path on earth was trod,
But that it was most glorious maketh not
Its briefness sadder, but as more divine.
Better such briefness than a dull decline
Into long dreary age's doting lot;
For him, not only thou, imperial Rome,
Nor thou alone, fair Italy, shall boast his worth,
But from far countless lands shall loudly come
A voice of mother-pride that claims him son of earth,
Of universal earth, that for the great
Knows no small rights of birth or place,
But names them children of her one vast state,
Of her one race.

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