The Sculptor Remembers the Nightingale

ARTHUR DAVISON FICKE

STRANGE, in the end, to see the mists grow clear!

Strange to look back from this last icy edge Of living, where the old shall be the dead Tomorrow, and watch all the lights grow pale, And their sole gleam invest one face that lends All lights their glory! ...

And where are you now,

Beloved? . . . Under the grey drifting dust Of Pere-Lachaise, or gone to foreign lands And now a dim old woman, or the dull Proud consort of some fool whose doting heart Once bought you at your price? . . . What matters it?

The form that brought me beauty, woke my soul,

And shall forever live in all my marbles— That you is dead, long dead. A light in darkness.

There is no Paris now, for we are gone. There is no art, for ours has found its end.

—Do you remember that glad April morning When you, awakening, ran impetuously In the clear freshness of your naked youth To the bright window, and there leaning out,

Poised as you listened for some wild bird-note That had awaked you—and I, brutal, young, Compelled you at the window-ledge to stand The morning through, unmoving, while I beat The stubborn clay, and made my sketch, which now

School children study—called "The Nightingale"?

Ah, nightingale of Spring that comes no more! Beloved girl, how shall I pay the debt I owe your beauty!

Many a woman since

Has served my toil. I have had many models— One with a marvellous shoulder, or delicate breast,

Or long heroic thigh. But past each form I groped to find the love and light of you Who in my Maytime made all Mays a part Of me forever. So it has always been:

I have had but one model. And if Heaven, That tiresome spot, shall give me clay to mould, And the bright angels poise to serve my need, For you I shall forget them; and the dust That was your beauty shall rise up transfigured Even as you gave it, even as I dreamed.