From part oft sundered, yet ever a globéd light, Than the eye of a man may avail of:—manifold One, I must pass from the face, I must pass from the face of the Sun : Old Want is awake and agog, every wrinkle a-frown; The worker must pass to his work in the terrible town: Oh, never the mast-high run of the seas Never the hell-colored smoke of the factories Hide thee, Never the reek of the time's fen-politics Hide thee, And ever my heart through the night shall with knowledge abide thee, And ever by day shall my spirit, as one that hath tried thee, My soul shall float, friend Sun, BALTIMORE, December, 1880. II. INDIVIDUALITY. SAIL on, sail on, fair cousin Cloud : Oh loiter hither from the sea. Still-eyed and shadow-brow'd, Steal off from yon far-drifting crowd, Yon laboring low horizon-smoke, Yon stringent sail, toil not for thee Nor me; did heaven's stroke The whole deep with drown'd commerce choke, No pitiless tease of risk or bottomry Would to thy rainy office close Thy will, or lock mine eyes from tears, Part wept for traders'-woes, Part for that ventures mean as those In issue bind such sovereign hopes and fears. -Lo, Cloud, thy downward countenance stares Blank on the blank-faced marsh, and thou Mindest of dark affairs; Thy substance seems a warp of cares ; Like late wounds run the wrinkles on thy brow. Well may'st thou pause, and gloom, and stare, A visible conscience: I arraign Thee, criminal Cloud, of rare Contempts on Mercy, Right, and Prayer,— (Yet though life's logic grow as gray As thou, my soul's not in eclipse.) Cold Cloud, but yesterday Thy lightning slew a child at play, And then a priest with prayers upon his lips For his enemies, and then a bright Lady that did but ope the door Upon the storming night To let a beggar in,—strange spite,— Till thy quick torch a barn had burned Which done, thy floods with winds returned,--- What myriad righteous errands high Thou slewest the child, oh why Not rather slay Calamity, Breeder of Pain and Doubt, infernal Power? Or why not plunge thy blades about Swarming to parcel out The body of a land, and rout The maw-conventicle, and ungorge Wrong? What the cloud doeth The Lord knoweth, The cloud knoweth not. Knoweth the artist not? Well-answered!-O dear artists, ye Say wrong This work is not of me, Awful is Art because 'tis free. Who made a song or picture, he My Lord is large, my Lord is strong: How poor, how strange, how wrong, I made to Him with love's unforced design! Oh, not as clouds dim laws have plann'd In the wind and sound the wind's command: For thee, Cloud,—if thou spend thine all That needs thee not; or crawl To the dry provinces, and fall Till every convert clod shall give to thee Green worship; if thou grow or fade, Bring on delight or misery, Fly east or west, be made Snow, hail, rain, wind, grass, rose, light, shade; What matters it to thee? There is no thee. Pass, kinsman Cloud, now fair and mild : But work, as plays a little child, Sure of the Father, Self, and Love, alone. BALTIMORE, 1878-9. III. MARSH SONG-AT SUNSET. OVER the monstrous shambling sea, Over the Caliban\sea, Bright Ariel-cloud, thou lingerest: Oh wait, oh wait, in the warm red West,- Over the humped and fishy sea, Over the Caliban sea O cloud in the West, like a thought in the heart And do a grace for me. Over the huge and huddling sea, Bring hither my brother Antonio,-Man,- Brother, I pardon thee. BALTIMORE, 1879-80. |