By the Fireside. Gaspar Becerra

This poem appears to have been suggested by a passage in Sterling’s Spanish Painters, which Mr. Longfellow was reading at the time with great pleasure. He had some thought of writing a drama based on Sterling’s account of Murillo’s life in Seville.

BY his evening fire the artist

Pondered o’er his secret shame;

Baffled, weary, and disheartened,

Still he mused, and dreamed of fame.

’T was an image of the Virgin

That had tasked his utmost skill;

But, alas! his fair ideal

Vanished and escaped him still.

From a distant Eastern island

Had the precious wood been brought;

Day and night the anxious master

At his toil untiring wrought;

Till, discouraged and desponding,

Sat he now in shadows deep,

And the day’s humiliation

Found oblivion in sleep.

Then a voice cried, “Rise, O master!

From the burning brand of oak

Shape the thought that stirs within thee!”—

And the startled artist woke,—

Woke, and from the smoking embers

Seized and quenched the glowing wood;

And therefrom he carved an image,

And he saw that it was good.

O thou sculptor, painter, poet!

Take this lesson to thy heart:

That is best which lieth nearest;

Shape from that thy work of art.

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