Chapter XVI

“True Grecian, she!” the sister of Elbert cried;
“Each morning brings her fresh from shrines of art,
All flush’d, a priestess from an oracle,
To sanctify us grosser mortals here
With vague suggestions! mutter’d mysteries!
Ah me, to hear her rave once!”
Edith smiled,
“And eyes that see are blest!—and which sees most—
My worship, or your wonder? Know you, friend,”
She turn’d to me and asked,—“this critic’s ground?—
The Sistine Babe it was, we spoke of Him.
Because I find art’s glass, when rightly held,
Revealing through the real the truth ideal,
I said: ‘I seem to see not only Him,
The Babe, but back of Him, His heavenly home.
I seem to enter this—His handmaid there,
And there commune until my soul is blest.’
I said: ‘From thence my spirit seems to come,
And feel its arms to be the throne of Christ.
And this,’ I said, ‘is wrought for me by art.
Some hold that souls transmigrate after death,
But art,’ I said, ‘makes mine transmigrate here.’
For this you hear of raving. Do I err?
The soul of feeling is in thought, not so?
Then one, to feel refresh’d, must think she bathes
In rills that reach her from the freshest springs.”