Long had the Sphinx waited. Year after year the flocking pigeons flitted
and wheeled through the sweet skies of spring, built their nests and reared
their young; tiny lizards, the new birth of the season, coiled and
glittered on the hot sands like wandering jewels; every creature, dying out
of conscious life, left its perpetuated self behind it, and repeated its
own youth in its young, according to its kind: but the Sphinx lived
alone. Nor all-unconscious of her solitude: for he who formed that massive
shape, chiselled those calm, expectant lips, and wide eyes pensive as
setting moons, he had not failed to do what all true artists do in virtue
of their truth,--he had shared his own life with his own creation, and it
was his lonely yearning that stirred her pulseless heart. Little did he
think, toiling at that stupendous figure, ages gone by, that he transfused
into the stone at which he labored, like a patient ant at some stupendous
burden, no little share of that creative yearning that inspired him to his
task; as little as you think, dear poet, whether poet, painter, or
sculptor,--for all are one, and one is all,--that in those dreams which you
write, as unconscious of your power as the transcribing stylus of its
office, your own heart pulsates for a listening world, and the very linking
of words that so respire their own music makes those words self-sentient of
their breaking, thrilling melody, and wrings or exalts them, idea-garments
as they are, with the restless heaving of the thought that wears them.
Pages:
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266