|
| NIGHT AND MORNING - These medallions hung on either
side of the entrance to the Denmark section, in the Art Palace
. They were of pure white marble, and valued at $760 each.
They were by the famous sculptor, Dausch. They represent the
sculptor's realization of the poet's dreams, for probably the subjects
of Night and Morning have inspired more beautiful thoughts than any
other of the mere inanimate phenomena of nature. Of course, the human
heart is the source of the greater part of true literature - for
instance, when the learned Dr. Canini, of Rome, undertook to translate
examples of the poetry of two hundred and fifty languages and
dialects, he wisely chose the text of Love, that sublime and eternal
pastoral, symphony, and tragedy. But Night and Morning are worthy of
the sculptor's art and the poet's song. We have in Night the veiled
figure, and the awe and silence of the hour. "Silence accompanied,"
cries John Milton, "for beast and bird - they to their grassy couch,
these to their nests, were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale; she
all night long her amorous descant sung; silence was pleased. How
glowed the firmament with living sapphires; Hesperus, that led the
host, rode brightest, till the moon, rising in clouded majesty, at
length apparent queen unveiled her peerless light, and o'er the dark
her silver mantel threw." Nor was the unrivaled enthusiast less
prodigial with praise of Morning: "Innumerable as stars of morning,
dew-drops which the sun impearls on every leaf and every flower," he
says. "Till Morn," he writes, perhaps most beautifully of all mortals
- "till Morn, waked by the circling hours, with rosy hand unbarred the
gates of light." |
