Collected Works (Vol. III)

118 RODIN IN RIME SONNETS AND MADAMIr RODIN. HEROIC helpmeet of the silent home ! Shall who sings Art not worship womanhood ? There is depth of calm beneath the sea’s fine foam ; Behind the great there is ever found the good. Honour and glory to the sacred house And ark of the covenant of holy trust, The unseen mother and the secret spouse Ever availing in the sorrow and dust That aye avenge the artist’s victory won, That cover up his monuments of fame, That twist his sight, once steadfast on the sun, To the fear folded in the robes of shame :— Lest he, to all the world plain victor, find Himself mere failure to his own white mind. LE PENSEUR. BLIND agony of thought! Who turns his pen Or brush or lyre to Art, shall see in this The symbol of his battle against men For men, the picture of the torturing bliss Of his necessity : sits clutched and closed Into himself the adept of wizard thought. Gripped in his own embrace he sits: keen- nosed The invisible bloodhounds ache upon the slot! Soon, soon they are on him: soon the fangs of hate, The sharp teeth of the infinite are in him ! Shall love, or fame, or gold, those pangs abate? What siren with smooth voice and breast shall win him? Never a one, be sure! In serene awe The thinker formulates eternal law. QUATORZAINS LA PENSEF. EXQUISITE fairy, flower from stone begotten Sprung into sudden shape of maidenhood, ITast thou thy father’s anguish all forgotten? Hast thou a balm, who hast hardly under- stood ? Is not thy beauty for his comfort moulded, Thy joy and purity his won reward? Sweet blush of blood, pale blossom lightly folded, To thee did he carve his way by right of sword ? Thou who art all delight to all of us, Hast thou no special intimate caress For him whose bloody sweat stood murderous On the writhen brow, the bosom of dis- tress? Ay! for his anguish thou art gain enough— One thought, worth all Earth's fame, and gold, and love! LE BAISER. INFINITE delicacy in great strength Holds the white girl and draws her into love. All her lithe subtlety, her lovely length, Is sealed in the embrace about, above Her visible life. What mastery of repose, Compulsion of motion lurks for us therein As we gaze back on Greece, as Nature glows, Simple and sacred, with no thought of sin, Yet born to trouble us, to fascinate. Here we are, back i’ th’ springtime of the earth ; God above man; and above God, dire fate. Ancient cosmogony of peace and mirth ! Careless, we careless, do invoke thy rime Of the ancient rapture of the olden time.