Poems (Taylor)/An Art-Lover to Christ

by Rachel Annand Taylor

AN ART-LOVER TO CHRIST

(Towards the End of the Ages of Faith)

If these I love, what love have I for Thee,Since in her treasuries the heart will be?Some, it may be, shall triumph, strong to seekAnd find both these and Thee. But I am weak.Unto mine idols am I wedded fast;And with them would I perish at the last.

(O beauty of great colour, great desires,Great throes of music, clangour of great spires,Mystical marvel of great verse, great dreamOf carven faces, and O thou supreme Beauty of perfect love, the perfect art,—Ye do consume with ecstasy mine heart.God's images—Nay, for your only sakeI flower and fade, labour and dream and wake.)

Not Thee and these! Thou art too great and sweetTo brook a cloven worship at Thy feet.I do not murmur. Fold Thy lovers, Thou,In Thy blue Arcady. But here and nowI gather all the joy of ParadiseWith faint adoring hands, and soft stilled eyes.

These perish; Thou endurest?—Even so.All perishing things are loveliest, I know.The Music these, the fainting Echo I,—Rather than live with Thee, with them I die!Nor shall thine angry trumpets rend that rest,For Thou art noble; and I love Them best.