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.