The Ring and the Book

Do you see this Ring? ’T is Rome-work, made to match (By Castellani’s imitative craft) Etrurian circlets found, some happy morn, After a dropping April; found alive Spark-like ’mid unearthed slope-side figtree-roots That roof old tombs at Chiusi: soft, you see, Yet crisp as jewel-cutting. There’s one trick, (Craftsmen instruct me) one approved device And but one, fits such slivers of pure gold As this was,—such mere oozings from the mine, Virgin as oval tawny pendent tear At beehive-edge when ripened combs o’erflow,— To bear the file’s tooth and the hammer’s tap: Since hammer needs must widen out the round, And file emboss it fine with lily-flowers, Ere the stuff grow a ring-thing right to wear. That trick is, the artificer melts up wax With honey, so to speak; he mingles gold With gold’s alloy, and, duly tempering both, Effects a manageable mass, then works: But his work ended, once the thing a ring, Oh, there’s repristination! Just a spirt O’ the proper fiery acid o’er its face, And forth the alloy unfastened flies in fume; While, self-sufficient now, the shape remains, The rondure brave, the lilied loveliness, Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore: Prime nature with an added artistry— No carat lost, and you have gained a ring. What of it? ’T is a figure, a symbol, say; A thing’s sign: now for the thing signified.