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Sonnet. About Jesus. V.

Topics: classic

But I have looked on pictures made by man,     Wherein, at first, appeared but chaos wild;     So high the art transcended, it beguiled     The eye as formless, and without a plan;     Until the spirit, brooding o'er, began     To see a purpose rise, like mountains piled,     When God said: Let the dry earth, undefiled,     Rise from the waves: it rose in twilight wan.     And so I fear thy pictures were too strange     For us to pierce beyond their outmost look;     A vapour and a darkness; a sealed book;     An atmosphere too high for wings to range:     At God's designs our spirits pale and change,     Trembling as at a void, thought cannot brook.

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"But I have looked on pictures made by man,..."

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