From part oft sundered, yet ever a globéd light,
Yet ever the artist, ever more large and bright

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:
But I fear not, nay, and I fear not the thing to be done;
I am strong with the strength of my lord the Sun:
How dark, how dark soever the race that must needs be run,
I am lit with the Sun.

Oh, never the mast-high run of the seas
Of traffic shall hide thee,

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,
Labor, at leisure, in art,-till yonder beside thee

My soul shall float, friend Sun,
The day being done.

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,
And come and brood upon the marsh with me.

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,—
Of murders, arsons, thefts,-of nameless stain.

(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,—
And then thy sulky rain refused to pour

Till thy quick torch a barn had burned
Where twelve months' store of victual lay,
A widow's sons had earned;

Which done, thy floods with winds returned,---
The river raped their little herd away.

What myriad righteous errands high
Thy flames might run on! In that hour

Thou slewest the child, oh why

Not rather slay Calamity,

Breeder of Pain and Doubt, infernal Power?

Or why not plunge thy blades about
Some maggot politician throng

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.
What the artist doeth,
The Lord knoweth;

Knoweth the artist not?

Well-answered!-O dear artists, ye
-Whether in forms of curve or hue
Or tone your gospels be-

Say wrong This work is not of me,
But God: it is not true, it is not true.

Awful is Art because 'tis free.
The artist trembles o'er his plan
Where men his Self must see,

Who made a song or picture, he
Did it, and not another, God nor man.

My Lord is large, my Lord is strong:
Giving, He gave my me is mine.

How poor, how strange, how wrong,
To dream He wrote the little song

I made to Him with love's unforced design!

Oh, not as clouds dim laws have plann'd
To strike down Good and fight for Ill,-
Oh, not as harps that stand

In the wind and sound the wind's command:
Each artist-gift of terror!-owns his will.

For thee, Cloud,—if thou spend thine all
Upon the South's o'er-brimming sea

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 :
Discharge the will that's not thine own.
I work in freedom wild,

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,-
Thy Prospero I'll be.

Over the humped and fishy sea,

Over the Caliban sea

O cloud in the West, like a thought in the heart
Of pardon, loose thy wing, and start,

And do a grace for me.

Over the huge and huddling sea,
Over the Caliban sea,

Bring hither my brother Antonio,-Man,-
My injurer night breaks the ban :

Brother, I pardon thee.

BALTIMORE, 1879-80.