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Alfred Noyes - ArtAlfred Noyes - Art
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            I     Yes! Beauty still rebels!     Our dreams like clouds disperse:       She dwells     In agate, marble, verse.     No false constraint be thine!     But, for right walking, choose       The fine,     The strict cothurnus, Muse.     Vainly ye seek to escape     The toil! The yielding phrase       Ye shape     Is clay, not chrysoprase.     And all in vain ye scorn     That seeming ease which ne`er       Was born     Of aught but love and care.     Take up the sculptor`s tool!     Recall the gods that die       To rule     In Parian o`er the sky.     For Beauty still rebels!     Our dreams like clouds disperse:       She dwells     In agate, marble, verse.             II     When Beauty from the sea,     With breasts of whiter rose       Than we     Behold on earth, arose.     Naked thro` Time returned     The Bliss of Heaven that day,       And burned     The dross of earth away.     Kings at her splendour quailed.     For all his triple steel       She haled     War at her chariot-wheel.     The rose and lily bowed     To cast, of odour sweet       A cloud     Before her wandering feet.     And from her radiant eyes     There shone on soul and sense       The skies`     Divine indifference.     O, mortal memory fond!     Slowly she passed away       Beyond     The curling clouds of day.     _Return_, we cry, _return_,     Till in the sadder light       We learn     That she was infinite.     The Dream that from the sea     With breasts of whiter rose       Than we     Behold on earth, arose.             III     Take up the sculptor`s tool!     Becall the dreams that die       To rule     In Parian o`er the sky;     And kings that not endure     In bronze to re-ascend       Secure     Until the world shall end.     Poet, let passion sleep     Till with the cosmic rhyme       You keep     Eternal tone and time,     By rule of hour and flower,     By strength of stern restraint       And power     To fail and not to faint.     The task is hard to learn     While all the songs of Spring       Return     Along the blood and sing.     Yet hear--from her deep skies,     How Art, for all your pain,       Still cries     _Ye must be born again!_     Reject the wreath of rose,     Take up the crown of thorn       That shows     To-night a child is born.     The far immortal face     In chosen onyx fine       Enchase,     Delicate line by line.     Strive with Carrara, fight     With Parian, till there steal       To light     Apollo`s pure profile.     Set the great lucid form     Free from its marble tomb       To storm     The heights of death and doom.     Take up the sculptor`s tool!     Recall the gods that die       To rule     In Parian o`er the sky,
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