| James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902. | | | | October 18 | | St. Luke the Painter | | By Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) |
| | St. Luke’s Day, October 18
GIVE honor unto Luke Evangelist; | |
| For he it was (the aged legends say) | |
| Who first taught Art to fold her hands and pray. | |
| Scarcely at once she dared to rend the mist | |
| Of devious symbols: but soon having wist | 5 |
| How sky-breadth and field-silence and this day | |
| Are symbols also in some deeper way, | |
| She looked through these to God and was God’s priest. | |
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| And if, past noon, her toil began to irk, | |
| And she sought talismans, and turned in vain | 10 |
| To soulless self-reflections of man’s skill— | |
| Yet now, in this the twilight, she might still | |
| Kneel in the latter grass to pray again, | |
| Ere the night cometh and she may not work. | | | | |
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