Verses (Baughan)/Renaissance
RENAISSANCE
What strange device is this of Fate’s, that thou,
Being such, in such a time, to such an earth
Art born, O damsel of the unruffled brow?
Sure, in a stately age long-past, thy birth
Must have made glad some lordly palace-pile
In some far dreamy city of the South,
Whose languid grace yet lingers in thy smile
And curves the corners of thy pouted mouth,
Sunbeams less shy than ours have kiss’d that cheek
Into its changeful almond-petal bloom,
And play’d their mazy game of hide-and-seek
’Mid those crisp tresses; till a sudden doom
Fasten’d them there, for ever to abide,
To lave thy brow in floods of radiant light,
Or soft adown thy shoulder’s dimpled side
Dance out a dazzling brede of gold and white.
—Yea, cloistered round with old red crumbling wall,
On marble steps methinks I see thee stand,
Erect and gracious, young and fair and tall,
Holding sweet purple violets in thy hand!
Yet as I gaze, rejoicing,—ah, behold!
Is there not spread a warm blue sky afloat
Above thee, and beneath thee? From the gold
Of those rough-rippling locks, thy dulcet throat,
All lilywhite and clear, leans yearningly
Along the blue; thy face is full of dreams,
Pensive, mysterious, very sweet to see!
And, thro’ the bright air flashing brighter beams,
Lo! from each pure-curv’d shoulder a white wing
Upleaping, for a veil that thou mayst spread
Before thy face, in that high communing
When God’s own voice rings round thine awe-struck head.
Star-bright thou standest on the sapphire floor,
And, floating round thee cloud-like, soft as love,
Fair many-folded raiment eddies o’er
Thy white feet, lifted as in act to move.
I know thee now! Thou art that angel dear
Whom Perugino saw, so long ago,
And never tir’d of limning. Prison’d here
Thou art, in this deep dungeon-world of woe,
This dreariness, that men call daily life.
Alas! thou hast forgone thy visions blest.
Where are thy wings? Like us, with sin, with strife,
Like us with littleness, thou art oppress’d!
Fate! Shall I bless or curse thee, who ordain’d
So dim a setting for a gem so rare—
Made woman of an Angel, yet retain’d
The Angel’s halo in the woman’s hair?