James Vila Blake, Sonnets from Marcus Aurelius 11

11.  

Ἄριστος τρόπος τοῦ ἀμύνεσθαι τὸ μὴ ἐξομοιοῦσθαι.

If a man has done me an injury, then to imitate him and act like him, so as to return him the same injury or do him some other hurt, is no way to put him or his behavior to discredit or to effect a reckoning. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.6 

11. 

I met an artist with his paints and brush: 

What doing? said I. Worshiping, quoth he. 

I hear no prayers, said I. He answered, Hush! 

One worships what one fain would make or be. 

Methought then how the earth adores the flowers 

And the great trees, and violets love the lily 

They fain would climb to, and the cloudy hours 

Lean sunward up, with adoration stilly. 

So unto what we love we look with praise, 

And imitation, which is praise the more; 

But when we love not, we look other ways, 

And seek not for a likeness in our store. 

Hark ’e! To breast a wrong, first meanly rate it; 

Then in the fight ye must not imitate it. 

IMAGE: Winslow Homer, Artists Sketching in the White Mountains (1868)