Chapter VII

You and I will never see that picture. While he mused on love and Beatrice, While he softened o’er his outlined angel, In they broke, those “people of importance:” We and Bice bear the loss for ever.

VIII.

What of Rafael’s sonnets, Dante’s picture? This: no artist lives and loves, that longs not Once, and only once, and for one only, (Ah, the prize!) to find his love a language Fit and fair and simple and sufficient— Using nature that’s an art to others, Not, this one time, art that’s turned his nature. Ay, of all the artists living, loving, None but would forego his proper dowry,— Does he paint? he fain would write a poem,— Does he write? he fain would paint a picture, Put to proof art alien to the artist’s, Once, and only once, and for one only. So to be the man and leave the artist, Gain the man’s joy, miss the artist’s sorrow.