Chapter VI: In the Studio

How Leonardo would have loved to paint
This profile of young saint
Within its aureole of tender gold;
To search each petal-fold

Of lips, for paler or for deeper rose,
To draw the straight, fine nose,
To linger musing on this broad-arched brow,
Even as I do now!

In this mysterious modelling of the cheek,
His watchful eye would seek
These half-tints delicate, roses and pearls
That are a little girl’s;

And many a sculptor of the time, as he,
Named “of Fiesole,”
Or he whose living, breathing “Singing Boys”
Still make their joyful noise;

Or he, far-famed, whose unforgotten hands
Wrought for all lands
To know and love in warm Carrara stone,
A Lady called “Unknown,”--

Large craftsmen of the re-born centuries--
How passionately these
Had told their vision of this little head,
Sweetly interpreted!

And if those liberal golden yesterdays
Would well have sung the praise
Of this pure candid profile’s lovely line,
No less, these days of mine:

For oh, that godlike sculptor lately here,
He whom these hills hold dear,
Would fain have shaped from it, as coin of Greece,
Another masterpiece;

But ere the perfect moment of these things,
Night came, and the dark wings;
And what he might have wrought of loveliness
We know not, we but guess!