But onward to the Sphere of Beauty--go Onward, O Child of Art! and, lo, Out of the matter which thy pains control The Statue springs!--not as with labor wrung From the hard block, but as from Nothing sprung-- Airy and light--the offspring of the soul! The pangs, the cares, the weary toils it cost Leave not a trace when once the work is done-- The Artist's human frailty merged and lost In Art's great victory won!
If human Sin confronts the rigid law Of perfect Truth and Virtue, awe Seizes and saddens thee to see how far Beyond thy reach, Perfection;--if we test By the Ideal of the Good, the best, How mean our efforts and our actions are! This space between the Ideal of man's soul And man's achievement, who hath ever past? An ocean spreads between us and that goal Where anchor ne'er was cast!
But fly the boundary of the Senses--live The Ideal life free Thought can give; And, lo, the gulf shall vanish, and the chill Of the soul's impotent despair be gone! And with divinity thou sharest the throne, Let but divinity become thy will! Scorn not the Law--permit its iron band The sense (it cannot chain the soul) to thrall. Let man no more the will of Jove withstand, And Jove the bolt lets fall!
If, in the woes of Actual Human Life-- If thou could'st see the serpent strife Which the Greek Art has made divine in stone-- Could'st see the writhing limbs, the livid cheek, Note every pang, and hearken every shriek Of some despairing lost Laocoon, The human nature would thyself subdue To share the human woe before thine eye-- Thy cheek would pale, and all thy soul be true To Man's great Sympathy.
But in the Ideal Realm, aloof and far, Where the calm Art's pure dwellers are, Lo, the Laocoon writhes, but does not groan. Here, no sharp grief the high emotion knows-- Here, suffering's self is made divine, and shows The brave resolve of the firm soul alone: Here, lovely as the rainbow on the dew Of the spent thunder-cloud, to Art is given, Gleaming through Grief's dark veil, the peaceful blue Of the sweet Moral Heaven.
So, in the glorious parable, behold How, bow'd to mortal bonds, of old Life's dreary path divine Alcides trod: The hydra and the lion were his prey, And to restore the friend he loved today, He went undaunted to the black-brow'd God; And all the torments and the labors sore Wroth Juno sent--the meek majestic One, With patient spirit and unquailing, bore, Until the course was run--