Arte

Walter Crane, The Lady's Chamber

in Clarence Cook, The House Beautiful, New York, Scribner, Armstrong and Co., 1878.

-

Art

Give to barrows, trays and pans

Grace and glimmer of romance;

Bring the moonlight into noon

Hid in gleaming piles of stone;

On the city’s paved street

Plant gardens lined with lilacs sweet;

Let spouting fountains cool the air,

Singing in the sun-baked square;

Let statue, picture, park and hall,

Ballad, flag and festival,

The past restore, the day adorn,

And make to-morrow a new morn.

So shall the drudge in dusty frock

Spy behind the city clock

Retinues of airy kings,

Skirts of angels, starry wings,

His fathers shining in bright fables,

His children fed at heavenly tables.

‘T is the privilege of Art

Thus to play its cheerful part,

Man on earth to acclimate

And bend the exile to his fate,

And, moulded of one element

With the days and firmament,

Teach him on these as stairs to climb,

And live on even terms with Time;

Whilst upper life the slender rill

Of human sense doth overfill.

-

Ralph Waldo Emerson