Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: IN A STUDIO. (studies From The Life.) Souls are lessened by their union with bodies: bodies are glorified by their union with souls.—Jai.alud'-din Rflm. The drowsy long-drawn afternoon Is heavy now with heat of June : Across the open window floats A far-off worn Italian tune. And on the little stage a fair Full-bosomed girl with banded hair, Low slipping off her gown of silk, Sets all her body's beauty bare. Ah motionless and white she stands With lifted face and lifted hands,— A dryad murmuring to the moon, A sea-nymph on the foamy sands; As round me here in magic-wise The crescent rows of pictures rise : We hear, outside, the sleepy birds Or sudden buzzing of blue flies. But now the joy of summer, sought So long, has vanished out of thought, For on the naked form I gaze Till all that once I loved is nought. I knew how fair the green earth is: I loved her half-lit mysteries, But in the whole enchanted world I found no beauty such as this ! 0 slender vase ! O dainty-set Warm, living, Grecian statuette, Well-named of yore the Song of God, In thee all heaven and earth are met ! For lit with joy the spirit sees A glimpse of God in flowers or trees, In cloud or wave or hill, but here An image holier than all these. And since more beauty none shall find 1 muse with glad and lowly mind Before the thinnest of all veils That cloud the One Great Soul behind. Nor can I marvel, now, that we In wiser ages bowed the knee To images of powers divine One half so beautiful as she, For I too, sitting silent, seemed As one reborn or one redeemed, Beholding there in human shape More beauty than my heart had dreamed. Again we see her fresh and sweet, A form unflecked, Her stately figure drawn erect With joined feet. ...