Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1886-05-20
THE CLAY CHERUB.
What is immortal? Dreamers speak OF

What is immortal? Dreamers speak OF
love
Cutliving mortal breath,
And coaqueriDg fate and circumstance
and death;
End wise men preach, ana poets sing III
rhyme
CT faith and fame which yeals cannot
disprove,
/ nd hope which laughs at time.
nd vet. the veriest trities oft outlast
n these and leave them in the misty
past,
1'roving how empty is their boast above
=, silken shred, flower, OF faded glove.
lie took piece of potter's earth one day
NV friend, remembered still
.And, with an artists ready craft and
skill,
Fashioned for me little cherub-face.
"Alas!" said, why make of brittle clay
A thing of so much grace,
So beautiful and sweet and dainty fair ?
It's lines will yield to the effacing air
Their delicate curving, shield as it may,
And dry and crumble, grain by grain,
away.
The brows were bent as in a wondering
dream,
Half joy and half surprise;
The gentle lids closed over sleeping eyes;
The tender lips just parted in smile
So sweet and life-like, 1t would almost
seem
That. in a little while.
1t would awaken laughing. from its rest;
And Quietly across the baby breast,
Which slumber's lightest breathing
seemed to thrill, still
Two angel wings were folded. soft and
He smiled, and touched the rounded
cheek of clay,
And gravely said to me:
This little face yeu prize so tenderly
Holds in itself no element of change,
No germ of dissolution or decay;
And it would not be strange
If in so kind and loving hands as yours
1t lasts for years, and even still endures
When much that you and /, dear chlld
TO-DAY away
Believe immortal, shall have passed
How truly did he speak, Deaths sea
was set
Even then upon his face,
Though love refused to see its fatal trace
And, though the world was fair will
light aud bloom,
Still in his eyes, where mirth and feeling
met,
There lay shade of doom.
Long since their earnest depths forgO
the light;
But, wrapped in happy sleep and visions
bright,
Unchanged by time, unshadowy by re-
gret,
The little cherub-face is perfect yet.
The hand which lowered with life
marble bust,
And caught a marvellous ray
OF beauty in this bit of worthless clay
That wrought out power and passion
from stone;
Called smiles from cold Carrara's prison
ing crust,
By skillful touch alone;
Awakened loveliest dimples in cheek
Rock-heWn, and made the carved lip al
most speak
Has now. oblivious of its lofty trust,
Forgot its cunning, and returned to dust
In the true heart that loved hin, even ye
The wild and frantic grief,
Which long rejected solace and RELIEF.
Has only changed to fixed and sllen
pain;
And every spring-time, when the viole
Wakes to the moving rain
While the glad birds build, and the new
leaves grow,
And the brooks sing-its blossom swee
and low
Keeps vigil by his rest, with blue eye wet
Like one who waits and never Will forget
What has it not eutlived and put tt
shame,
Outlasting their decay,
This little fragment of untempered clay
Youth, love, and all that makes exist
ence dear;
Life's brightest dreams-an artist
dawning fame,
A woman's hope and fear,
A child's sweet life, that promlsed u
atone
For wears of toll and woe endured alone
Faiths strong reliance, friendship
steadiest flame the same
And yet the clay-wrought face remaln'
Wherefore it seems these trifies, which
we call
Mere nethings of day,
Last when our souls best treasures pas
away;
Beside the lifetime of a book-presset
flower,
Loves fond forever dwindles brief ant
small,
And fame is for an hour;
JOYS promise fades before a rose red,
And clay endures when youth and hop
are dead;
Shadows outlast our trust, as years be
fall,
But human sorrow outlives them all.
- Elizabeth Akers, in n. Y. Ind.