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. |