The Foregoing Subject Resumed

Among a grave fraternity of Monks, For One, but surely not for One alone, Triumphs, in that great work, the Painter's skill, Humbling the body, to exalt the soul; Yet representing, amid wreck and wrong And dissolution and decay, the warm And breathing life of flesh, as if already Clothed with impassive majesty, and graced With no mean earnest of a heritage Assigned to it in future worlds. Thou, too, With thy memorial flower, meek Portraiture! From whose serene companionship I passed Pursued by thoughts that haunt me still; thou also Though but a simple object, into light Called forth by those affections that endear The private hearth; though keeping thy sole seat In singleness, and little tried by time, Creation, as it were, of yesterday With a congenial function art endued For each and all of us, together joined In course of nature under a low roof By charities and duties that proceed Out of the bosom of a wiser vow. To a like salutary sense of awe Or sacred wonder, growing with the power Of meditation that attempts to weigh, In faithful scales, things and their opposites, Can thy enduring quiet gently raise A household small and sensitive, whose love, Dependent as in part its blessings are Upon frail ties dissolving or dissolved On earth, will be revived, we trust, in heaven.