John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.
Poems Subjective and ReminiscentRaphael
I
The glow of Autumn’s westering day,
A hazy warmth, a dreamy light,
On Raphael’s picture lay.
The fair face of a musing boy;
Yet, while I gazed, a sense of awe
Seemed blending with my joy.
Of boyhood’s soft and wavy hair,
And fresh young lip and cheek, and brow
Unmarked and clear, were there.
I saw the inward spirit shine;
It was as if before me rose
The white veil of a shrine.
The hidden life, the man within,
Dissevered from its frame and mould,
By mortal eye were seen.
The waving of that pictured hand?
Loose as a cloud-wreath on the sky,
I saw the walls expand.
Broad, luminous, remained alone,
Through which all hues and shapes of grace
And beauty looked or shone.
The marvels which his pencil wrought,
Those miracles of power whose fame
Is wide as human thought.
O Mother, beautiful and mild!
Enfolding in one dear embrace
Thy Saviour and thy Child!
The awful glory of that day
When all the Father’s brightness shone
Through manhood’s veil of clay.
Dark visions of the days of old,
How sweetly woman’s beauty smiled
Through locks of brown and gold!
Once more upon her lover shone,
Whose model of an angel’s grace
He borrowed from her own.
But not the lesson which it taught;
The soft, calm shadows which it threw
Still rested on my thought:
Even in Earth’s cold and changeful clime,
Plant for their deathless heritage
The fruits and flowers of time.
Of which the coming life is made,
And fill our Future’s atmosphere
With sunshine or with shade.
We weave with colors all our own,
And in the field of Destiny
We reap as we have sown.
The shadows which it gathered here,
And, painted on the eternal wall,
The Past shall reappear.
On Milton’s tuneful ear have died?
Think ye that Raphael’s angel throng
Has vanished from his side?
Or warmly touched, or coldly dim,
The pictures of the Past remain,—
Man’s works shall follow him!