Fifty Years & Other Poems/Before a Painting
Before a Painting
I knew not who had wrought with skill so fine What I beheld; nor by what laws of art He had created life and love and heartOn canvas, from mere color, curve and line.Silent I stood and made no move or sign; Not with the crowd, but reverently apart; Nor felt the power my rooted limbs to start,But mutely gazed upon that face divine.
And over me the sense of beauty fell, As music over a raptured listener to The deep-voiced organ breathing out a hymn;Or as on one who kneels, his beads to tell, There falls the aureate glory filtered through The windows in some old cathedral dim.