Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/127

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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