| |
| SHE sought the Studios, beckoning to her side | |
| An arch-designer, for she planned to build. | |
| He was of wise contrivance, deeply skilled | |
| In every intervolve of high and wide— | |
| Well fit to be her guide. | 5 |
| |
| “Whatever it be,” | |
| Responded he, | |
| With cold, clear voice, and cold, clear view, | |
| “In true accord with prudent fashionings | |
| For such vicissitudes as living brings, | 10 |
| And thwarting not the law of stable things, | |
| That will I do.” | |
| |
| “Shape me,” she said, “high walls with tracery | |
| And open ogive-work, that scent and hue | |
| Of buds, and travelling bees, may come in through, | 15 |
| The note of birds, and singings of the sea, | |
| For these are much to me.” | |
| |
| “An idle whim!” | |
| Broke forth from him | |
| Whom nought could warm to gallantries: | 20 |
| “Cede all these buds and birds, the zephyr’s call, | |
| And scents, and hues, and things that falter all, | |
| And choose as best the close and surly wall, | |
| For winter’s freeze.” | |
| |
| “Then frame,” she cried, “wide fronts of crystal glass, | 25 |
| That I may show my laughter and my light— | |
| Light like the sun’s by day, the stars’ by night— | |
| Till rival heart-queens, envying, wail, ‘Alas, | |
| Her glory!’ as they pass.” | |
| |
| “O maid misled!” | 30 |
| He sternly said, | |
| Whose facile foresight pierced her dire; | |
| “Where shall abide the soul when, sick of glee, | |
| It shrinks, and hides, and prays no eye may see? | |
| Those house them best who house for secrecy, | 35 |
| For you will tire.” | |
| |
| “A little chamber, then, with swan and dove | |
| Ranged thickly, and engrailed with rare device | |
| Of reds and purples, for a Paradise | |
| Wherein my Love may greet me, I my Love, | 40 |
| When he shall know thereof?” | |
| |
| “This, too, is ill,” | |
| He answered still, | |
| The man who swayed her like a shade. | |
| “An hour will come when sight of such sweet nook | 45 |
| Would bring a bitterness too sharp to brook, | |
| When brighter eyes have won away his look; | |
| For you will fade.” | |
| |
| Then said she faintly: “O, contrive some way— | |
| Some narrow winding turret, quite mine own, | 50 |
| To reach a loft where I may grieve alone! | |
| It is a slight thing; hence do not, I pray, | |
| This last dear fancy slay!” | |
| |
| “Such winding ways | |
| Fit not your days,” | 55 |
| Said he, the man of measuring eye; | |
| “I must even fashion as my rule declares, | |
| To wit: Give space (since life ends unawares) | |
| To hale a coffined corpse adown the stairs; | |
For you will die.”
1867. | 60 |
| |
