PRE-RAPHAELITES

Beauty clouds by accident and surprise
rendering malignant flaw from images benign
like the sliver in Fra Filippo Lippi's eye.

In tempera, forms the icon we surmise
awash with cherubs on a barrel-lid of brine--
beauty clouds by accident, and surprise.

Sculpting virgins out of marble, pieces fly,
the resolute and earnest strike resigns
like the sliver in Fra Filippo Lippi's eye.

A crease, a curve, soft to sight, it lies
somewhere between a rhythm and a rhyme--
beauty clouds by accident, and surprise.

But you, bright love, who set yourself astride,
my head within your hands, you drift in kind
like the sliver in Fra Filippo Lippi's eye.

You know, too well, an artist knows he dies
in increments of stone and paint, refined--
beauty clouds by accident, and surprise
like the sliver in Fra Filippo Lippi's eye.

---W. Holman Hunt