And nobly perfect, in our day
Of haste, half-work, and disarray,
Profound yet touching, sweet yet strong,
Hath risen Goethe's, Wordsworth's song;
Yet even I (and none will bow
Deeper to these) must needs allow,
They yield us not, to soothe our pains,
Such multitude of heavenly strains
As from the kings of sound are blown,—
Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn."
While thus my friend discoursed, we pass
Out of the path, and take the grass.
The grass had still the green of May,
And still the unblackened elms were gay;
The kine were resting in the shade,
The flies a summer murmur made.
Bright was the morn, and south the air;
The soft-couched cattle were as fair
As those which pastured by the sea,
That old-world morn, in Sicily,
When on the beach the Cyclops lay,
And Galatea from the bay
Mocked her poor lovelorn giant's lay.
"Behold," I said, "the painter's sphere!
The limits of his art appear.
The passing group, the summer morn,
The grass, the elms, that blossomed thorn,—
Those cattle couched, or, as they rise,
Their shining flanks, their liquid eyes,—
These, or much greater things, but caught
Like these, and in one aspect brought!
In outward semblance he must give
