Before a Painting by James Weldon Johnson — Read

I knew not who had wrought with skill so fine / What I beheld; nor by what laws of art / He had created life and love and heart / On canvas, from mere color, curve and line.

Silent I stood and made no move or sign;

Not with the crowd, but reverently apart;

Nor felt the power my rooted limbs to start, / But mutely gazed upon that face divine.

And over me the sense of beauty fell, / As music over a raptured listener to / The deep-voiced organ breathing out a hymn;

Or as on one who kneels, his beads to tell, / There falls the aureate glory filtered through / The windows in some old cathedral dim.