Chapter II

Meanwhile, the maiden from her model’s throne
Lists the brown bees intone,
Antiphonal to lady-wasps that pass
Across the north-light’s glass;

A squirrel quarrels with the elm-tree’s leaves;
Beneath the studio eaves
The circling swifts dispute, in serried flight
The bluebirds’ manor right;

Within, high images of knight and priest,
Girded for old-time feast,
And warriors of to-day, and lights o’ the law
Contrive their air of awe;

Damsels fair-filleted, in chiton trim,
Advance with symbols dim,
While Fia parts wide silences to speak,
“Are all the virtues Greek?”

The sculptor, pacing, plies his antique art
As in a world apart,
Since many a message yet must go and come
’Twixt master eye and thumb;

And artists aye must meditate at ease
Their chosen mysteries,
While only little sitters ever know
That sitter’s hour, how slow!

Ah, guiled by gazing into purple hills,
And saying “Daffodils,”
Or sweet short story of the Lucy-star,
Or tale of “Lochinvar,”

That hour, an earthly hour, not long will stay!
Fia will flee away
Into the sunset, carolling, “Oh when,--
When shall I come again?”