Parrhasius

There stood an unsold captive in the mart,     A gray-haired and majestical old man,     Chained to a pillar. It was almost night,     And the last seller from the place had gone,     And not a sound was heard but of a dog     Crunching beneath the stall a refuse bone,     Or the dull echo from the pavement rung.     As the faint captive changed his weary feet.     He had stood there since morning, and had borne     From every eye in Athens the cold gaze     Of curious scorn. The Jew had taunted him     For an Olynthian slave. The buyer came     And roughly struck his palm upon his breast,     And touched his unhealed wounds, and with a sneer     Passed on; and when, with weariness oer-spent,     He bowed his head in a forgetful sleep,     The inhuman soldier smote him, and, with threats     Of torture to his children, summoned back     The ebbing blood into his pallid face.     T was evening, and the half-descended sun     Tipped with a golden fire the many domes     Of Athens, and a yellow atmosphere     Lay rich and dusky in the shaded street     Through which the captive gazed. He had borne up     With a stout heart that long and weary day,     Haughtily patient of his many wrongs,     But now he was alone, and from his nerves     The needless strength departed, and he leaned     Prone on his massy chain, and let his thoughts     Throng on him as they would. Unmarked of him     Parrhasius at the nearest pillar stood,     Gazing upon his grief. The Athenians cheek     Flushed as he measured with a painters eye     The moving picture. The abandoned limbs,     Stained with the oozing blood, were laced with veins     Swollen to purple fulness; the gray hair,     Thin and disordered, hung about his eyes;     And as a thought of wilder bitterness     Rose in his memory, his lips grew white,     And the fast workings of his bloodless face     Told what a tooth of fire was at his heart.     The golden light into the painters room     Streamed richly, and the hidden colors stole     From the dark pictures radiantly forth,     And in the soft and dewy atmosphere     Like forms and landscapes magical they lay.     The walls were hung with armor, and about     In the dim corners stood the sculptured forms     Of Cytheris, and Dian, and stern Jove,     And from the casement soberly away     Fell the grotesque long shadows, full and true,     And like a veil of filmy mellowness,     The lint-specks floated in the twilight air.     Parrhasius stood, gazing forgetfully     Upon his canvas. There Prometheus lay,     Chained to the cold rocks of Mount Caucasus,     The vulture at his vitals, and the links     Of the lame Lemnian festering in his flesh;     And, as the painters mind felt through the dim,     Rapt mystery, and plucked the shadows forth     With its far reaching fancy, and with form     And color clad them, his fine, earnest eye     Flashed with a passionate fire, and the quick curl     Of his thin nostril, and his quivering lip     Were like the winged gods, breathing from his flight.     Bring me the captive now!     My hand feels skilful, and the shadows lift     From my waked spirit airily and swift,     And I could paint the bow     Upon the bended heavens, around me play     Colors of such divinity to-day.     Ha! bind him on his back!     Look! as Prometheus in my picture here!     Quick, or he faints! stand with the cordial near!     Now, bend him to the rack!     Press down the poisoned links into his flesh!     And tear agape that healing wound afresh!     So, let him writhe! How long     Will he live thus? Quick, my good pencil, now!     What a fine agony works upon his brow!     Ha! gray-haired, and so strong!     How fearfully he stifles that short moan!     Gods! if I could but paint a dying groan!     Pity thee! So I do!     I pity the dumb victim at the altar,     But does the robed priest for his pity falter?     Id rack thee though I knew     A thousand lives were perishing in thine,     What were ten thousand to a fame like mine?     Hereafter! Ay, hereafter!     A whip to keep a coward to his track!     What gave Death ever from his kingdom back     To check the skeptics laughter?     Come from the grave to-morrow with that story,     And I may take some softer path to glory.     No, no, old man! we die     Even as the flowers, and we shall breathe away     Our life upon the chance wind, even as they!     Strain well thy fainting eye,     For when that bloodshot quivering is oer,     The light of heaven will never reach thee more.     Yet theres a deathless name!     A spirit that the smothering vault shall spurn,     And like a steadfast planet mount and burn;     And though its crown of flame     Consumed my brain to ashes as it shone,     By all the fiery stars! Id bind it on!     Ay, though it bid me rifle     My hearts last fount for its insatiate thirst,     Though every life-strung nerve be maddened first,     Though it should bid me stifle     The yearning in my throat for my sweet child,     And taunt its mother till my brain went wild,     All, I would do it all,     Sooner than die, like a dull worm, to rot,     Thrust foully into earth to be forgot!     Oh heavens! but I appall     Your heart, old man! forgive, ha! on your lives     Let him not faint! rack him till he revives!     Vain, vain, give oer! His eye     Glazes apace. He does not feel you now,     Stand back! Ill paint the death-dew on his brow!     Gods! if he do not die     But for one moment, one, till I eclipse     Conception with the scorn of those calm lips!     Shivering! Hark! he mutters     Brokenly now, that was a difficult breath,     Another? Wilt thou never come, oh Death!     Look! how his temple flutters!     Is his heart still? Aha! lift up his head!     He shudders, gasps, Jove help him! so, hes dead.     How like a mounting devil in the heart     Rules the unreined ambition! Let it once     But play the monarch, and its haughty brow     Glows with a beauty that bewilders thought     And unthrones peace forever. Putting on     The very pomp of Lucifer, it turns     The heart to ashes, and with not a spring     Left in the bosom for the spirits lip,     We look upon our splendor and forget     The thirst of which we perish! Yet hath life     Many a falser idol. There are hopes     Promising well; and love-touched dreams for some;     And passions, many a wild one; and fair schemes     For gold and pleasure, yet will only this     Balk not the soul, Ambition, only, gives,     Even of bitterness, a beaker full!     Friendship is but a slow-awaking dream,     Troubled at best; Love is a lamp unseen,     Burning to waste, or, if its light is found,     Nursed for an idle hour, then idly broken;     Gain is a grovelling care, and Folly tires,     And Quiet is a hunger never fed;     And from Loves very bosom, and from Gain,     Or Folly, or a Friend, or from Repose,     From all but keen Ambition, will the soul     Snatch the first moment of forgetfulness     To wander like a restless child away.     Oh, if there were not better hopes than these,     Were there no palm beyond a feverish fame,     If the proud wealth flung back upon the heart     Must canker in its coffers, if the links     Falsehood hath broken will unite no more,     If the deep yearning love, that hath not found     Its like in the cold world, must waste in tears,     If truth and fervor and devotedness,     Finding no worthy altar, must return     And die of their own fulness, if beyond     The grave there is no heaven in whose wide air     The spirit may find room, and in the love     Of whose bright habitants the lavish heart     May spend itself, what thrice-mocked fools are we!