New Zealand Verse/Art and Beauty
CXXVII.
Art and Beauty.
I saw as in a dream a palace high,
With deep-domed roof on massive columns set,
Wherein were forms, the loveliest Art had yet
Conceived, which none could over-magnify.
The dome was as a star-bespangled sky,
The columns richly chased; and there was met
In every niche a lovely statuette,
And all around Art’s glories charmed the eye;
And while I gazed, and thought that here I saw
Man’s fairest dreams preserved beyond decay
The palace fell; and I was filled with awe.
Then lo! there broke the splendours of the day,
And all things seemed to say in earth and sky,
“Though Art be mortal, Beauty cannot die.”
With deep-domed roof on massive columns set,
Wherein were forms, the loveliest Art had yet
Conceived, which none could over-magnify.
The dome was as a star-bespangled sky,
The columns richly chased; and there was met
In every niche a lovely statuette,
And all around Art’s glories charmed the eye;
And while I gazed, and thought that here I saw
Man’s fairest dreams preserved beyond decay
The palace fell; and I was filled with awe.
Then lo! there broke the splendours of the day,
And all things seemed to say in earth and sky,
“Though Art be mortal, Beauty cannot die.”