| OCR Text |
Show ~-•.____,---.--·-- ETCHING Kuow ye what etching is? It is to ramble On copper.: in a summer twilights hour To let sweet Fancy fiddle tunefully. It is the whispering from Nature~s heart, Heard when we wander on the moor, or gaze On the sea, on fleecy clouds of heaven, or at The rushy lake when playful ducks are splash· ing,· It is the down of doves, the eagle's claw; 'Tis Homer in a nutshell, ten commandments Writ on a penny's surface,· 'tis a wish, A sigh, comprised in finely-chiselled odes, A little image in its bird's-flight caught. It is to paint on the soft gold-hued copper With sting of wasp aud velvet of the wings Of butterfly, by sparkling sunbeams glowed. Even so the etcher"s needle, on its point, Doth catch what in the artist-poets mind Reality and fancy did create. -TRANSLATED FROM C. VosMAER BY HoLDA. 3 |
