THE OLD PICTURE-DEALER
Be the day's traffic more or less,
Old Brian seeks his Leyden chair
Placed in the anteroom's recess,
Our connoisseur's securest lair:
Here, turning full the burner's rays,
Holds long his treasure-trove in sight,—
Upon a painting sets his gaze
Like some devoted eremite.
The book-worms rummage as they will,
Loud roars the wonted Broadway din,
Life runs its hackneyed round,—but still
One tireless boon can Brian win,—
Can picture in this modern time
A life no more the world shall know,
And dream of Beauty at her prime
In Parma, with Correggio.
Withered the dealer's face, and old,
But wearing yet the first surprise
Of him whose eyes the light behold
Of Italy and Paradise:
Forever blest, forever young,
The rapt Madonna poises there,
Her praise by hovering cherubs sung,
Her robes by ether buoyed, not air.
See from the graybeard's meerschaum float
A cloud of incense! Day or night,
He needs must steal apart to note
Her grace, her consecrating light.
With less ecstatic worship lay,
Before his marble goddess prone,
The crippled poet, that last day
When in the Louvre he made his moan.
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