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I. ART’S use; what is it but to touch the springs | |
| Of nature? But to hold a torch up for | |
| Humanity in Life’s large corridor, | |
| To guide the feet of peasants and of kings! | |
| What is it but to carry union through | 5 |
| Thoughts alien to thoughts kindred, and to merge | |
| The lines of color that should not diverge, | |
| And give the sun a window to shine through! | |
| What is it but to make the world have heed | |
| For what its dull eyes else would hardly scan! | 10 |
| To draw in a stark light a shameless deed, | |
| And show the fashion of a kingly man! | |
| To cherish honor, and to smite all shame, | |
| To lend hearts voices, and give thoughts a name! | |
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II. But wherein shall art work? Shall beauty lead | 15 |
| It captive, and set kisses on its mouth? | |
| Shall it be strained unto the breast of youth, | |
| And in a garden live where grows no weed? | |
| Shall it, in dalliance with the flaunting world, | |
| Play but soft airs, sing but sweet-tempered songs? | 20 |
| Veer lightly from the stress of all great wrongs, | |
| And lisp of peace ’mid battle-flags unfurled? | |
| Shall it but pluck the sleeve of wantonness, | |
| And gently chide the folly of our time? | |
| But wave its golden wand at sin’s duress, | 25 |
| And say, “Ah me! ah me!” to fallow crime? | |
| Nay; Art serves Truth, and Truth, with Titan blows, | |
| Strikes fearless at all evil that it knows. | |
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