THE HOUSE OF LIFE. 255

around this vase ; but turns it from side to side, and
masters its imaged significance. 3, He fills it with
the rapid and ardent experiences of his career, and
it is finally to receive his own ashes. — These are the
principal contents of the sonnet : but some details,
perhaps rather obscurely expressed, will remain to be
considered as we proceed. — I never knew whether my
brother was thinking of some particular ^'man of
genius '^ when he wrote this sonnet : but have always
suspected that he had in his eye his own early colleague
in the race of life and of art, the illustrious painter
whom we now know by the name of Sir John Millais.
He has not crept at your slow pace around the
vase of Life ; but he has turned it about with his
hands, and he already understands all its sides, with
their sculptured imagery. In that imagery — there,
one personage, with his loins girded, is breathing alert
for some great race ; his road runs far, now by bare
sands, now along fruitful spaces ; he laughs, but,
pausing not, he has passed through the jolly throng
who are intent on their pastimes ; he weeps, but he
stays not for weeping ; at last, still a youth, he stands
somewhere crowned, with silent face. And now the
man who turned this vase about has filled it with
wine for blood ; ^ with blood for tears ; with spice to



* ' ' And he has filled this vase with wine for blood,
With blood /or tears, with spice /or burning vow.
