The Finding of The Book and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

I love this ocean picture's pale reserve:
No tints unnatural of purpling grain,
Azure, or opal, mar the rough grey main,
The sweep, the swing, the long froth-churning curve,
The shoreward working and confusèd swerve
Of yellowing water—white blooms wear such stain
All dashed and muddied with the April rain.
No poor ambition did the painter nerve!
Well that no laboured ship or sun-burst broke
The strong monotony of that sky and surge.
Leave, only leave, the line of stormy smoke,
The sea-birds dashed upon the nearer verge,—

Brave in its truth this ocean piece shall be
The type for us of Homer's harvestless sea.

II

Nor only this—lesson of more than art!
Who dares, strong in simplicity, despise
The evanescent beauties that arise
Before his gaze, and, in true thought apart,
Look on straight forward to life's very heart:
Who dares, by gift supernal rendered wise,
Deem truth more beautiful for all true eyes
Than garish things made merely for the mart;
Whether he paint or write or live his thought,
To that which he produces shall be lent
An immortality of ravishment:
One day it shall be own'd divinely wrought;
And all the sternness of its strength shall be
Like the grave beauty of this pictured sea.