C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Inspiration
By Paul Verlaine (18441896)
A
Egeria with the lightsome eyes profound,
Sudden Erato, Genius quick to grant,
Old picture Angel of the gilt background!
Since in the first-come brain it makes to grow
Thick as some dusty yellow roadside weed,
A gardenful of poems none did sow!—
Transporting Passion,—seasonable queen!—
Gabriel and lute, Latona’s son and lyre,—
Ay, Inspiration, summoned at sixteen!
That not believe in gods, and yet revere,
That have no halo, hold no golden clue,
For whom no Beatrix leaves her radiant sphere,—
And moving verses shape with unmoved mind,
Whom wandering in groups by evening seas,
In musical converse ye scarce shall find,—
Sleep daunted, knowledge earned,—more knowledge still!
Is Faust’s brow, of the woodcuts, sternly knit,—
Is stubborn Perseverance, and is Will!
That grasps—as doth a noble bird of prey
The steaming flanks of the foredoomèd brute—
Its project, and with it—skyward, away!
Unequaled effort, strife that shall not cease;
Is night, the bitter night of labor, whence
Arises, sun-like, slow, the Masterpiece!
Sway with the birch-tree to all winds that blow,
Poor things! Art knows not the divided mind—
Speak—Milo’s Venus, is she stone or no?
The pure block of the beautiful, and gain
From out the marble cold where it was not,
Some starry-chiton’d statue without stain,
Enkindling with a golden-rosy flame
Our work, new Memnon, shall to ears unborn
Make quiver in the singing air our name!