Spirit, bear This ivory to the soul that dare Work out, through joy, and care, and pain, The thought which lies within the grain, Hid like a dim and clouded sun.
The prologue, which thus introduces us to the studio of the “Ivory Carver,” may be deemed by some far-fetched and metaphysical. To us it seems a most beautiful preparation for what follows. It attunes the mind to a just appreciation of that self-sacrificing devotion with which the artist, year by year, in silence, in want, toils away to work out of the solid ivory the divine thought which haunts him. The moral of the prologue, as we understand it, is to connect the inspirations of genius with their true source. It prepares us to look at the toiling “ivory carver,” not as he appeared to his family and neighbors, a madman or a fool, but as he might have appeared to some celestial visitant, who knew the secrets of his heaven-touched soul.
Silently sat the artist alone, Carving a Christ from the ivory bone. Little by little, with toil and pain, He won his way through the sightless grain, That held and yet hid the thing he sought, Till the work stood up, a growing thought. And all around him, unseen yet felt, A mystic presence forever dwelt, A formless spirit of subtle flame, The light of whose being went and came As the artist paused from work, or bent His whole heart to it with firm intent. . . . . . . Husband, why sit you ever alone, Carving your Christ from the ivory bone? O, carve, I pray you, some fairy ships, Or rings for the weaning infant’s lips, Or toys for yon princely boy who stands Knee-deep in the bloom of his father’s lands. And waits for his idle thoughts to come; Or carve the sword hilt, or merry drum, Or the flaring edge of a curious can, Fit for the lips of a bearded man: With vines and grapes in a cunning wreath, Where the peering satyrs wink beneath, And catch around quaintly knotted stems At flying nymphs by their garment hems. . . . . . . O carve you something of solid worth— Leave heaven to heaven, come, earth to earth. Carve that thy hearth-stone may glimmer bright, And thy children laugh in dancing light.
Steadily answered the carver’s lips, As he brushed from his brow the ivory chips; While the presence grew with the rising sound, Spurning in grandeur the hollow ground, As if the breath on the carver’s tongue Were fumes from some precious censer swung, That lifted the spirit’s winged soul To the heights where crystal planets roll Their choral anthems, and heaven’s wide arch Is thrilled with the music of their march; And the faithless shades flew backward, dim From the wondrous light that lived in him— Thus spake the carver—his words were few, Simple and meek, but he felt them true— “I labor by day, I labor by night, The Master ordered, the work is right: Pray that He strengthen my feeble good; For much must be conquered, much withstood.” The artist labored, the labor sped, _But a corpse lay in his bridal bed_.