“When through dead stone to breathe a soul of light,
With the dull marble to unite
The kindling genius, some great sculptor glows;
Behold him straining every nerve intent,
Behold how, o’er the subject-element,
The stately thought with march laborious goes!
For never, save to toil untiring, spoke
The unwilling Truth from her mysterious well—
The statue only to the chisel’s stroke,
Wakes from its marble cell.
“But onward, to the sphere of beauty,—go
Onward, O Child of Art! and, lo,
Out of the matter which thy pains control
The statue springs! not as with labor wrung,
From the hard block, but as from nothing sprung,
Airy and light—the offspring of the soul!
The pangs, the cares, the weary toils it cost,
Leave not a trace when once the work is done—
The artist’s human frailty merged and lost,
In Art’s great victory won!”
The last poem of any length that Halleck wrote was entitled Young America, a war-lyric, published in the “New York Ledger,” in 1864. It is a spirited production, with many very beautiful lines, whose music recalls some of his earliest and best verses.
I could interpolate here many characteristic anecdotes of Halleck, but time warns me that I must conclude. In one of the last letters I received from him, he spoke of Mr. James H. Hackett, and proposed coming to the city especially to see him, and have a chat with him. It was proposed by Mr. Hackett to invite Mr. Halleck, Mr. Verplanck, and one or two other old friends to meet together, and have a good old-fashioned dinner. Halleck used to say, “Pretty much all my old friends are gone—except Bryant, Verplanck, and myself,—we are the last of the cocked hats.” But
