“Des Sohnes letzter Gruss” (“The Son’s last Salutation”). A modern
painting by Karl Hoff in the Royal Picture Gallery, Dresden.
We tramped the stretching galleries--
We gazed each priceless gem--
Jordäens--Rubens--Raphael--
We paused and pondered them.
The famous, same Madonnas--
The fatuous forms at ease--
And the Wedding Feast with Cavaliers--
And a drunken Hercules.
We saw the Sistine Mother,
The farthest Nations know--
Till room on room of light and gloom
Swept row on outer row.
And some we knew and reverenced--
Whose praise the wide World sings;
And some we fled with callous dread
For flat and flaccid things.
Till at last at the gallery’s ending
In the room with the roof-let door,
We saw a young man standing--
The Lone Son bid to War.
Lithe and strong and supple,
Clean-limbed, clear-eyed and tall--
And the parting gaze of the parting ways
When the battered trumpets call.
And we saw the widowed Mother--
And the prostrate, sobless grief;
And the pitying priest beside her,
And the gentle, vain relief.
And the Sister--standing--watching--
’Twixt love, reproach and tears--
The tender light of the summer night
Where brood the unfathomed years.
The Maiden--standing, watching--
Fair as the first, faint star:
A dainty symbol sent to prove
How near the angels are.
* * * * *
We gleaned the gallery’s gorgeous wealth--
But lost its wondrous worth,
As we bowed a head in silence
To the Good of all the Earth.