Full of all sparkling sparry loveliness.
They should be wrought, not cast; like tempered steel,
Burned and cooled, burned again, and cooled again.
A thought is like a ray of light—complex
In nature, simple only in effect.
Words are the motes of thought, and nothing more.
Words are like sea-shells on the shore; they show
Where the mind ends, and not how far it has been.
Let every thought, too, soldier-like, be stripped,
And roughly looked over. The dress of words,
Like to the Roman girl’s enticing garb,
Should let the play of limb be seen through it,
And the round rising form. A mist of words,
Like halos round the moon, though they enlarge
The seeming size of thoughts, make the light less
Doubly. It is the thought writ down we want,
Not its effect—not likenesses of likenesses.
And such descriptions are not, more than gloves
Instead of hands to shake, enough for us.
But is the power—is poesie inborn,
Or is it to be gained by art or toil?
It is underived, except from God; but where
Strongest, asks most of human care and aid.
Great bards toil much and most; but most at first,
Ere they can learn to concentrate the soul
For hours upon a thought to carry it.
Why I have sat for hours and never moved,
Saving my hands, clock-like, in writing round
Day after day of thought, and lapse of life.
Many make books, few poems, which may do
Well for their gains, but they do nought for truth,
Nor man, true bard’s main aim. Perish the books,
But the creations live. Some steal a thought,
And clip it round the edge, and challenge him
Whose ’twas to swear to it. To serve things thus
Is as foul witches to cut up old moons
Into new stars. Some never rise above
A pretty fault, like faulty dahlias;
And of whose best things it is kindly said,
The thought is fair; but, to be perfect, wants
A little heightening, like a pretty face
With a low forehead. Do thou more than such,
Or else do nothing. And in poetry,
There is a poet-worship, one of other
Which is idolatry, and not the true
Love-service of the soul to God, which hath
Alone of His inbreathing, and is rendered
Unto Him, from the first, without man’s mean,
By those whom He makes worthy of His worship;
Who kneel at once to Him, and at no shrine,
Save in the world’s wide ear, do they confess them
Of faults which are all truths; and through which ear,
As the world says them over to itself,
He heareth and absolveth; for the bard
Speaks but what all feel more or less within
The heart’s heart, and the sin confessed is done
Away with and for ever.
What of style?
There is no style is good but nature’s style.
And the great ancients’ writings, beside ours,
Look like illuminated manuscripts
Before plain press print; all had different minds,
And followed only their own bents: for this
Nor copied that, nor that the other; each
Is finished in his writing, each is best
For his own mind, and that it was upon;
And all have lived, are living, and shall live;
But these have died, are dying, and shall die;
Yea, copyists shall die, spark out and out.
Minds which combine and make alone can tell
The bearings and the workings of all things
Li and upon each other. All the parts
Of nature meet and fit: wit, wisdom, worth,
Goodness and greatness; to sublimity
Beauty arises, like a planet world,
Labouring slowly, seemingly, up Heaven;
But with an infinite pace to some immortal eyes.
And he who means to be a great bard, most
Measure himself against pure mind, and fling
His soul into a stream of thought, as will
A swimmer hurl himself into the water.
But never swimmer on the stream, nor bird
On wind, feels half so strong, or swift, or glad,
As bard borne high on his mind above himself;
As though he should begin a lay like this,
Where spiritual element is all;
Thought chafing thought, as bough bough, till all burn,
Like the star-written prophecies of Heaven.
The shattered shadow of eternity
Upon the troubled world, even as the sun
Shows brokenly on wavy waters, time;
All time is but a second to the dead.
The smoke of the great burning of the world
Had trailed across the skies for many an age,
And was fast wearing into air away,
When a saint stood before the throne, and cried—
Blessed be Thou, Lord God of all the worlds
That have been, and that are, and are to be!
For Thy destruction is like infinite
With Thy creation, just and wise in both:
Give me a world; and God said, Be it so:
And the world was: and then go on to show
How this new orb was made, and where it shone;
Who ruled, abode, worshipped and loved therein;
Their natures, duties, hopes: let it be pure,
Wise, holy, beautiful; if not to be
Without it, made so by constraint of God—
Kindly forced good: we have had enough of sin
And folly here to wish for and love change.
Let him show God as going thither mildly,
Father-like, blessing all and cursing none;
And that there never will be need for them
That He shall come in glory new to Himself,
With light to which the lightning shall be shadow,
And the sun sadness; borne upon a car
With wheels of burning worlds, within whose rims
Whole hells burn, and beneath whose course the stars
Dry up like dew-drops. But of this enough;
I mean that h must weigh himself as he
Will be weighed after by posterity;
After us all are critics, to a man.
Write to the mind and heart, and let the ear
Glean after what it can. The voice of great
Or graceful thoughts is sweeter far than all
Word-music; and great thoughts, like great deeds, need
No trumpet. Never be in haste in writing.
Let that thou utterest be of nature’s flow,
Not art’s; a fountain’s, not a pump’s. But once
Begun, work thou all things into thy work;
And set thyself about it, as the sea
About earth, lashing at it day and night.
And leave the stamp of thine own soul in it
As thorough as the fossil flower in clay.
The theme shall start and struggle in thy breast,
Like to a spirit in its tomb at rising,
Bending the stones, and crying, Resurrection!
What theme remains?
Thyself, thy race, thy love,
The faithless and the full of faith in God;
Thy race’s destiny, thy sacred
