II.— NOON

Do not die, Phene! I am yours now, you Are mine now; let fate reach me how she likes, If you'll not die: so, never die! Sit here — My workroom's single seat. I over-lean

This length of hair and lustrous front; they turn Like an entire flower upward: eyes, lips, last Your chin — no, last your throat turns:‘ tis their scent Pulls down my face upon you. Nay, look ever

This one way till I change, grow you — I could Change into you, beloved! You by me, And I by you; this is your hand in mine,

And side by side we sit: all's true. Thank God! I have spoken: speak you! O my life to come! My Tydeus must be carved that's there in clay;

Yet how be carved, with you about the room? Where must I place you? When I think that once This roomfull of rough block-work seemed my heaven Without you! Shall I ever work again,

Get fairly into my old ways again, Bid each conception stand while, trait by trait, My hand transfers its lineaments to stone? Will my mere fancies live near you, their truth —

The live truth, passing and repassing me, Sitting beside me? Now speak! Only first,

See, all your letters! Was't not well contrived? Their hiding-place is Psyche's robe; she keeps Your letters next her skin: which drops out foremost? Ah — this that swam down like a first moonbeam

Into my world! Again those eyes complete Their melancholy survey, sweet and slow, Of beauty — to the human archetype.

On me, with pity, yet some wonder too: As if God bade some spirit plague a world, And this were the one moment of surprise And sorrow while she took her station, pausing

O'er what she sees, finds good, and must destroy! What gaze you at? Those? Books, I told you of; Let your first word to me rejoice them, too: This minion, a Coluthus, writ in red

Bister and azure by Bessarion's scribe — Read this line — no, shame — Homer's be the Greek First breathed me from the lips of my Greek girl! This Odyssey in coarse black vivid type

With faded yellow blossoms‘ twixt page and page, To mark great places with due gratitude; “He said, and on Antinous directed A bitter shaft” — a flower blots out the rest!

Again upon your search? My statues, then! — Ah, do not mind that — better that will look When cast in bronze — an Almaign Kaiser, that, Swart-green and gold, with truncheon based on hip.

This, rather, turn to! What, unrecognized? I thought you would have seen that here you sit As I imagined you — Hippolyta, Naked upon her bright Numidian horse.

Recall you this, then? “Carve in bold relief” — So you commanded — “carve, against I come, A Greek, in Athens, as our fashion was, Feasting, bay-filleted and thunder-free,

Who rises‘ neath the lifted myrtle-branch. ‘ Praise Those who slew Hipparchus!’ cry the guests, ‘ While o'er thy head the singer's myrtle waves As erst above our champion: stand up all!’”

See, I have labored to express your thought. Quite round, a cluster of mere hands and arms, ( Thrust in all senses, all ways, from all sides, Only consenting at the branch's end

They strain toward ) serves for frame to a sole face, The Praiser's, in the center: who with eyes Sightless, so bend they back to light inside His brain where visionary forms throng up,

Sings, minding not that palpitating arch Of hands and arms, nor the quick drip of wine From the drenched leaves o'erhead, nor crowns cast off, Violet and parsley crowns to trample on —

Sings, pausing as the patron-ghosts approve, Devoutly their unconquerable hymn. But you must say a “well” to that — say “well!” Because you gaze — am I fantastic, sweet?

Gaze like my very life's-stuff, marble — marbly Even to the silence! Why, before I found The real flesh Phene, I inured myself To see, throughout all nature, varied stuff

For better nature's birth by means of art: With me, each substance tended to one form Of beauty — to the human archetype. On every side occurred suggestive germs

Of that — the tree, the flower — or take the fruit — Some rosy shape, continuing the peach, Curved beewise o'er its bough; as rosy limbs, Depending, nestled in the leaves; and just

From a cleft rose-peach the whole Dryad sprang. But of the stuffs one can be master of, How I divined their capabilities! From the soft-rinded smoothening facile chalk

That yields your outline to the air's embrace, Half-softened by a halo's pearly gloom; Down to the crisp imperious steel, so sure To cut its one confided thought clean out

Of all the world. But marble!—‘ neath my tools More pliable than jelly — as it were Some clear primordial creature dug from depths In the earth's heart, where itself breeds itself,

And whence all baser substance may be worked; Refine it off to air, you may — condense it Down to the diamond — is not metal there, When o'er the sudden speck my chisel trips?

— Not flesh, as flake off flake I scale, approach, Lay bare those bluish veins of blood asleep? Lurks flame in no strange windings where, surprised By the swift implement sent home at once,

Flushes and glowings radiate and hover About its track? Phene? what — why is this? That whitening cheek, those still dilating eyes!

Ah, you will die — I knew that you would die! Now the end's coming; to be sure, it must Have ended sometime! Tush, why need I speak Their foolish speech? I cannot bring to mind

One half of it, beside; and do not care For old Natalia now, nor any of them. Oh, you — what are you?— if I do not try To say the words Natalia made me learn;

To please your friends — it is to keep myself Where your voice lifted me, by letting that Proceed; but can it? Even you, perhaps, Cannot take up, now you have once let fall,

The music's life, and me along with that — No, or you would! We'll stay, then, as we are — Above the world. You creature with the eyes!

If I could look forever up to them, As now you let me — I believe all sin, All memory of wrong done, suffering borne, Would drop down, low and lower, to the earth

Whence all that's low comes, and there touch and stay — Never to overtake the rest of me, All that, unspotted, reaches up to you, Drawn by those eyes! What rises is myself,

Not me the shame and suffering; but they sink, Are left, I rise above them. Keep me so, Above the world! But you sink, for your eyes

Are altering — altered! Stay — “I love you, love” — I could prevent it if I understood: More of your words to me; was‘ t in the tone Or the words, your power?

Or stay — I will repeat Their speech, if that contents you! Only change No more, and I shall find it presently Far back here, in the brain yourself filled up.

Natalia threatened me that harm should follow Unless I spoke their lesson to the end, But harm to me, I thought she meant, not you. Your friends — Natalia said they were your friends

And meant you well — because, I doubted it, Observing ( what was very strange to see ) On every face, so different in all else, The same smile girls like me are used to bear,

But never men, men cannot stoop so low; Yet your friends, speaking of you, used that smile, That hateful smirk of boundless self-conceit Which seems to take possession of the world

And make of God a tame confederate, Purveyor to their appetites — you know! But still Natalia said they were your friends, And they assented though they smiled the more,

And all came round me — that thin Englishman With light lank hair seemed leader of the rest; He held a paper — “What we want,” said he, Ending some explanation to his friends,

“Is something slow, involved, and mystical, To hold Jules long in doubt, yet take his taste And lure him on until, at innermost Where he seeks sweetness’ soul, he may find — this!

— As in the apple's core, the noisome fly; For insects on the rind are seen at once, And brushed aside as soon, but this is found Only when on the lips or loathing tongue.”

And so he read what I have got by heart: I'll speak it — “Do not die, love! I am yours” — No — is not that, or like that, part of words Yourself began by speaking? Strange to lose

What cost such pains to learn! Is this more right? I am a painter who cannot paint; In my life, a devil rather than saint; In my brain, as poor a creature too:

No end to all I cannot do! Yet do one thing at least I can — Love a man or hate a man Supremely: thus my lore began.

Through the Valley of Love I went, In the lovingest spot to abide, And just on the verge where I pitched my tent, I found Hate dwelling beside.

( Let the Bridegroom ask what the painter meant, Of his Bride, of the peerless Bride! ) And further, I traversed Hate's grove, In the hatefullest nook to dwell;

But lo, where I flung myself prone, couched Love Where the shadow threefold fell. ( The meaning — those black bride's-eyes above, Not a painter's lip should tell! )

“And here,” said he, “Jules probably will ask, ‘ You have black eyes, Love — you are, sure enough, My peerless bride — then do you tell indeed What needs some explanation! What means this?’”

— And I am to go on, without a word — So I grew wise in Love and Hate, From simple that I was of late. Once when I loved, I would enlace

Breast, eyelids, hands, feet, form, and face Of her I loved, in one embrace — As if by mere love I could love immensely! Once, when I hated, I would plunge

My sword, and wipe with the first lunge My foe's whole life out like a sponge — As if by mere hate I could hate intensely! But now I am wiser, know better the fashion

How passion seeks aid from its opposite passion; And if I see cause to love more, hate more Than ever man loved, ever hated before — And seek in the Valley of Love,

The nest, or the nook in Hate's Grove, Where my soul may surely reach The essence, naught less, of each, The Hate of all Hates, the Love

Of all Loves, in the Valley or Grove — I find them the very warders Each of the other's borders. When I love most, Love is disguised

In Hate; and when Hate is surprised In Love, then I hate most: ask How Love smiles through Hate's iron casque, Hate grins through Love's rose-braided mask —

And how, having hated thee, I sought long and painfully To reach thy heart, nor prick The skin but pierce to the quick —

Ask this, my Jules, and be answered straight By thy bride — how the painter Lutwyche can hate! Lutwyche! Who else? But all of them, no doubt, Hated me: they at Venice — presently

Their turn, however! You I shall not meet: If I dreamed, saying this would wake me. Keep What's here, the gold — we cannot meet again,

Consider! and the money was but meant For two years’ travel, which is over now, All chance or hope or care or need of it. This — and what comes from selling these, my casts

And books and medals, except — let them go Together, so the produce keeps you safe Out of Natalia's clutches! If by chance ( For all's chance here ) I should survive the gang

At Venice, root out all fifteen of them, We might meet somewhere, since the world is wide. Give her but a least excuse to love me! When — where —

How — can this arm establish her above me, If fortune fixed her as my lady there, There already, to eternally reprove me? ( “Hist!” — said Kate the Queen;

But “Oh!” cried the maiden, binding her tresses, “‘ Tis only a page that carols unseen, Crumbling your hounds their messes!” ) Is she wronged?— To the rescue of her honor,

My heart! Is she poor?— What costs it to be styled a donor? Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part. But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her!

( “Nay, list!” — bade Kate the Queen; And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses, “‘ Tis only a page that carols unseen Fitting your hawks their jesses!” )

What name was that the little girl sang forth? Kate? The Cornaro, doubtless, who renounced The crown of Cyprus to be lady here At Asolo, where still her memory stays,

And peasants sing how once a certain page Pined for the grace of her so far above His power of doing good to, “Kate the Queen — She never could be wronged, be poor,” he sighed,

“Need him to help her!” Yes, a bitter thing To see our lady above all need of us; Yet so we look ere we will love; not I,

But the world looks so. If whoever loves Must be, in some sort, god or worshiper, The blessing or the blest-one, queen or page, Why should we always choose the page's part?

Here is a woman with utter need of me — I find myself queen here, it seems! How strange! Look at the woman here with the new soul,

Like my own Psyche — fresh upon her lips Alit the visionary butterfly, Waiting my word to enter and make bright, Or flutter off and leave all blank as first.

This body had no soul before, but slept Or stirred, was beauteous or ungainly, free From taint or foul with stain, as outward things Fastened their image on its passiveness;

Now, it will wake, feel, live — or die again! Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff Be Art — and further, to evoke a soul From form be nothing? This new soul is mine!

Now, to kill Lutwyche, what would that do?— save A wretched dauber, men will hoot to death Without me, from their hooting. Oh, to hear God's voice plain as I heard it first, before

They broke in with their laughter! I heard them Henceforth, not God. To Ancona — Greece — some isle! I wanted silence only; there is clay

Everywhere. One may do whate'er one likes In Art; the only thing is, to make sure That one does like it — which takes pains to know. Scatter all this, my Phene — this mad dream!

Who, what is Lutwyche, what Natalia's friends, What the whole world except our love — my own, Own Phene? But I told you, did I not, Ere night we travel for your land — some isle

With the sea's silence on it? Stand aside — I do but break these paltry models up To begin Art afresh. Meet Lutwyche, I — And save him from my statue meeting him?

Some unsuspected isle in the far seas! Like a god going through his world, there stands One mountain for a moment in the dusk, Whole brotherhoods of cedars on its brow;

And you are ever by me while I gaze — Are in my arms as now — as now — as now! Some unsuspected isle in the far seas! Some unsuspected isle in far-off seas!