While they who court the world, like Milton's cloud,
"Turn forth their silver lining" on the crowd,
This gifted Being wraps himself in night;
And keeping all that softens and adorns
And gilds his social nature hid from sight,
Turns but its darkness on a world he scorns.
[1] Psaphon, in order to attract the attention of the world, taught
multitudes of birds to speak his name, and then let them fly away in
various directions; whence the proverb, "Psaphonis aves."
[2] Bruce.
[3] "And the name of the star is called Wormwood, and the third part of
the waters became wormwood."--_Rev_. viii.
EXTRACT VIII.
Venice.
_Female Beauty at Venice.--No longer what it was in the time of Titian.--
His mistress.--Various Forms in which he has painted her.--Venus.--Divine
and profane Love.--La Fragilita d'Amore--Paul Veronese.--His Women.--
Marriage of Cana.--Character of Italian Beauty.--Raphael's Fornarina.--
Modesty_.
Thy brave, thy learned have passed away:
Thy beautiful!--ah, where are they?
The forms, the faces that once shone,
Models of grace, in Titian's eye,
Where are they now, while flowers live on
In ruined places, why, oh! why
Must Beauty thus with Glory die?
That maid whose lips would still have moved,
Could art have breathed a spirit through them;
Whose varying charms her artist loved
More fondly every time he drew them,
(So oft beneath his touch they past,
Each semblance fairer than the last);
Wearing each shape that Fancy's range
Offers to Love--yet still the one
Fair idol seen thro' every change,
Like facets of some orient stone,--
In each the same bright image shown.
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