No doubt we shall fail.

We cannot grasp the whole of nature and humanity, but we shall be _in_ their life: aspiring, alive, and winning more and more of truth." And the world of art howled at them, as the world of criticism howled at Wordsworth.

But a new life and joy began to move in painting.

Its winter was over, its spring had begun, its summer was imagined.

Their drawing was faulty; their colour was called crude; they seemed to know little or nothing of composition; but the Spirit of Life was in them, and their faults were worth more than the best successes of the school that followed Rafael; for their faults proved that passion, aspiration and originality were again alive: Give these, I exhort you, their guerdon and glory For daring so much, before they well did it.
If ever the artist should say to himself, "What I desire has been attained: I can but imitate or follow it"; or if the people who care for any art should think, "The best has been reached; let us be content to rest in that perfection"; the death of art has come.
The next poem belonging to this subject is the second part of _Pippa Passes_.