Heath's book of beauty : with beautifully finished engravings, from drawings of the first artists / edited by the Countess of Blessington.

Date:
[1840]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Heath's book of beauty : with beautifully finished engravings, from drawings of the first artists / edited by the Countess of Blessington. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    The plastic ore, by thee refined, Flows from the chaos of the mind, And, taught thine image to express, Assumes new form of loveliness. Thou guid’st the pencil and the pen, Stamping the current coin of men, Retouching with a master’s hand The faulty sketch the mind hath plann’d. Attendant on thy steps we trace Both real and ideal grace ; The lovelier portion of the whole, The wildest strains which touch the soul, As Venus rising from the sea, Proceed and emanate from thee. Boundless, alone, thou stand’st apart, Ruling the empire of the heart; Without thee, Nature’s self were vain ; Without thee, chaos were again ; Inanimate the world would pass Into its dark primeval mass, And earth, and air, and sky, were mute And tuneless as a broken lute : Nor Phoebus shed his borrow’d light, Since night were day, and day were night. Bright Spirit! if that power divine, The harmony of song, were mine ; If but the words my feelings sought Could give an echo to the thought, My weary soul would fly to thee, In heartfelt strains of minstrelsy : Or if within this mind’s recess, That dark and dreary wilderness,