t must his soul with endless failure smart.

To him the master: "Scorn is in thy praise!
If so this dull, dead stone thy mind can fill,
To death, not life, thou must have turned thy face!"

Then boldly spoke the youth: "Admire I will!
What though thy Christ for death's repose prepare
So strangely silent and so strangely still,

Yet at a great thing greatly wrought I stare,
And long to match the marvel that I see;
I see what is, and thou what should be there."

The master looked upon him silently,
His youthful strength, his limbs so straight and fine,
And deemed there were no model such as he.

"A prey thou find'st me to despair malign--
How get from lifeless marble life and pain?
Here nature fails, whose secrets else are mine.

To seek a hireling's aid were all in vain;
And sought I thine, though partner of my aims,
Naught but a cold refusal should I gain."

"Nay," said the youth, "in art's and God's high names,
I would perform unwearied, unafraid,
Whate'er of me thy need transcendent claims."

He spoke, and straight his beauty disarrayed,
Showing the fair flower of his youthful grace
Within the guarded workshop's sacred shade.

Entranced the master gazed, and could not chase
A thought that rose unbidden to his mind--
If pain upon that form its lines could trace!

"The help thou off'rest if I am to find,
Thee too the cross must raise above the ground * * *"
Willing, the youth his gracious limbs resigned.

With tight cords first his prey the sculptor bound,
Then brought the hammer and the piercing nails--
A martyr's death must close the destined round!

The first sharp nail went through, and piteous wails
Burst from the youth, but no compassion woke;
An eager eye the look of suffering hails.

With restless haste redoubled, stroke on stroke
Achieved the bleeding model that he sought.
Calmly to work he went; no word he spoke.

A hideous joy upon his features wrought--
For nature now each shade of anguished woe
Upon the expiring lovely form had taught.

Unceasing worked his hands, above, below;
His heart was to all human feeling dead--
But in the marble * * * life began to show!

Whether in prayer the sufferer bowed his head,
Or in despairing torment gnashed his teeth,
Still on the sculptor's flying fingers sped.

The pale, exhausted victim, nigh to death,
As nig