Silently sat the artist alone, Carving a Christ from the ivory bone. Little by little, with toil and pain, He won his way through the sightless grain, That held and yet hid the thing he sought, Till the work stood up, a growing thought. And all around him, unseen yet felt, A mystic presence forever dwelt, A formless spirit of subtle flame, The light of whose being went and came As the artist paused from work, or bent His whole heart to it with firm intent. . . . . . . Husband, why sit you ever alone, Carving your Christ from the ivory bone? O, carve, I pray you, some fairy ships, Or rings for the weaning infant’s lips, Or toys for yon princely boy who stands Knee-deep in the bloom of his father’s lands. And waits for his idle thoughts to come; Or carve the sword hilt, or merry drum, Or the flaring edge of a curious can, Fit for the lips of a bearded man: With vines and grapes in a cunning wreath, Where the peering satyrs wink beneath, And catch around quaintly knotted stems At flying nymphs by their garment hems. . . . . . . O carve you something of solid worth— Leave heaven to heaven, come, earth to earth. Carve that thy hearth-stone may glimmer bright, And thy children laugh in dancing light. Steadily answered the carver’s lips, As he brushed from his brow the ivory chips; While the presence grew with the rising sound, Spurning in grandeur the hollow ground, As if the breath on the carver’s tongue Were fumes from some precious censer swung, That lifted the spirit’s winged soul To the heights where crystal planets roll Their choral anthems, and heaven’s wide arch Is thrilled with the music of their march; And the faithless shades flew backward, dim From the wondrous light that lived in him— Thus spake the carver—his words were few, Simple and meek, but he felt them true— “I labor by day, I labor by night, The Master ordered, the work is right: Pray that He strengthen my feeble good; For much must be conquered, much withstood.” The artist labored, the labor sped, _But a corpse lay in his bridal bed_. But we must have done with quotations. Indeed, our limits warn us that we must abruptly close the volume. We have read every poem in it with the most lively pleasure. It has been in the belief that we could not otherwise minister so well to the gratification of our readers that we have quoted so freely and said so little. We will only add in conclusion, that every fresh production of Mr. Boker’s that we see furnishes additional evidence of his true calling as a poet. Should he never write another line, he has already, in the brief space of three years, done enough to make his name classical. * * * * *