"
Thus was the royal scutcheon kept free from stain or blot!
The story has descended from days now half forgot;
'Twas eleven hundred and forty this happened, as I've heard,
The flower of German princes thought shame to break his word.
* * * * *
THE CRUCIFIX[41] (1830)
In hopeless contemplation of his work
The master stood, a frown upon his brow,
Where shame and self-contempt appeared to lurk.
With all his art and knowledge he had now
Portrayed the suffering Savior's image there--
Yet could the marble not with life endow.
He could not make it live, for all his care--
What is not flesh knows not to suffer pain;
Cold stone can none but stone's cold likeness bear.
Beauty and due proportion though it gain,
The chisel's marks will never disappear
And nature wake, howe'er his prayer may strain:
"Ah, turn not from me, Nature! Thou most dear,
I long to raise thee to undreamed of height--
But thou art dumb * * * a sorry bungler's here!"
There entered then a loyal neophyte,
Who looked with reverence on the master's art
And stood beside him, flushed with new delight.
To the same muse was given his young heart,
The selfsame quest of beauty filled his days--
Yet must his soul with endless failure smart.
To him the master: "Scorn is in thy praise!
If so this dull, dead stone thy mind can fill,
To death, not life, thou must have turned thy face!"
Then boldly spoke the youth: "Admire I will!
What though thy Christ for death's repose prepare
So strangely silent and so strangely still,
Yet at a great thing greatly wrought I stare,
And long to match the marvel that I see;
I see what is, and thou what should be there.
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