The Praiser's, in the centre: who with eyes Sightless, so bend they back to light inside His brain where visionary forms throng up, Sings, minding not that palpitating arch Of hands and arms, nor the quick drip of wine From the drenched leaves o'erhead, nor crowns cast off, Violet and parsley crowns to trample on-- Sings, pausing as the patron-ghosts approve, Devoutly their unconquerable hymn. But you must say a "well" to that--say "well!" Because you gaze--am I fantastic, sweet? Gaze like my very life's-stuff, marble--marbly Even to the silence! Why, before I found The real flesh Phene, I inured myself To see, throughout all nature, varied stuff For better nature's birth by means of art: With me, each substance tended to one form Of beauty--to the human archetype. On every side occurred suggestive germs Of that--the tree, the flower--or take the fruit,-- Some rosy shape, continuing the peach, Curved beewise o'er its bough; as rosy limbs, Depending, nestled in the leaves; and just From a cleft rose-peach the whole Dryad sprang. But of the stuffs one can be master of, How I divined their capabilities! From the soft-rinded smoothening facile chalk That yields your outline to the air's embrace, Half-softened by a halo's pearly gloom; Down to the crisp imperious steel, so sure To cut its one confided thought clean out Of all the world. But marble!--'neath my tools More pliable than jelly--as it were Some clear primordial creature dug from depths In the earth's heart, where itself breeds itself, And whence all baser substance may be worked; Refine it off to air, you may,--condense it Down to the diamond;--is not metal there, When o'er the sudden speck my chisel trips? --Not flesh, as flake off flake I scale, approach, Lay bare those bluish veins of blood asleep? Lurks flame in no strange windings where, surprised By the swift implement sent home at once, Flushes and glowings radiate and hover About its track? Phene? what--why is this? That whitening cheek, those still dilating eyes! Ah, you will die--I knew that you would die! PHENE _begins, on his having long remained silent._