The Power of Art

Not human art, but living gods alone

Can fashion beauties that by changing live,—

Her buds to spring, his fruits to autumn give,

To earth her fountains in her heart of stone;

But these in their begetting are o'erthrown,

Nor may the sentenced minutes find reprieve;

And summer in the blush of joy must grieve

To shed his flaunting crown of petals blown.

We to our works may not impart our breath,

Nor them with shifting light of life array;

We show but what one happy moment saith;

Yet may our hands immortalize the day

When life was sweet, and save from utter death

The sacred past that should not pass away.