9

  But onward to the Sphere of Beauty—­go
  Onward, O Child of Art! and, lo,
    Out of the matter which thy pains control
  The Statue springs!—­not as with labour wrung
  From the hard block, but as from Nothing sprung—­
    Airy and light—­the offspring of the soul! 
  The pangs, the cares, the weary toils it cost
    Leave not a trace when once the work is done—­
  The artist’s human frailty merged and lost
    In art’s great victory won!

  10

  If human Sin confronts the rigid law
  Of perfect Truth and Virtue,[9] awe
    Seizes and saddens thee to see how far
  Beyond thy reach, Perfection;—­if we test
  By the Ideal of the Good, the best,
    How mean our efforts and our actions are! 
  This space between the Ideal of man’s soul
    And man’s achievement, who hath ever past? 
  An ocean spreads between us and that goal,
    Where anchor ne’er was cast!

  11

  But fly the boundary of the Senses—­live
  the Ideal life free Thought can give;
    And, lo, the gulf shall vanish, and the chill
  Of the soul’s impotent despair be gone! 
  And with divinity thou sharest the throne,
    Let but divinity become thy will! 
  Scorn not the Law—­permit its iron band
    The sense (it cannot chain the soul) to thrall. 
  Let man no more the will of Jove withstand,
  And Jove the bolt lets fall!

  12

  If, in the woes of Actual Human Life—­
  If thou could’st see the serpent strife
    Which the Greek Art has made divine in stone—­
  Could’st see the writhing limbs, the livid cheek,
  Note every pang, and hearken every shriek
    Of some despairing lost Laocoon,
  The human nature would thyself subdue
    To share the human woe before thine eye—­
  Thy cheek would pale, and all thy soul be true
    To Man’s great Sympathy.

  13

  But in the Ideal realm, aloof and far,
  Where the calm Art’s pure dwellers are,
    Lo, the Laocoon writhes, but does not groan. 
  Here, no sharp grief the high emotion knows—­
  Here, suffering’s self is made divine, and shows
    The brave resolve of the firm soul alone: 
  Here, lovely as the rainbow on the dew
    Of the spent thunder-cloud, to Art is given,
  Gleaming through Grief’s dark veil, the peaceful blue
    Of the sweet Moral Heaven.

[Footnote 9:  The Law, i.e. the Kantian ideal of Truth and Virtue.  This stanza and the next embody, perhaps with some exaggeration, the Kantian doctrine of morality.]

  14

  So, in the glorious parable, behold
  How, bow’d to mortal bonds, of old
    Life’s dreary path divine Alcides trode: 
  The hydra and the lion were his prey,
  And to restore the friend he loved to day,
    He went undaunted to the black-brow’d God;
  And all the torments and the labours sore
    Wroth Juno sent—­meek majestic One,
  With patient spirit and unquailing, bore,
    Until the course was run—­