To entertain that New thou tellst, thou art,"T is here, 't is here, thou canst unhand thy

heart

And breathe it free, and breathe it free,
By rangy marsh, in lone sea-liberty.

The tide 's at full; the marsh with flooded

streams

Glimmers, a limpid labyrinth of dreams.
Each winding creek in grave entrancement lies
A rhapsody of morning-stars. The skies
Shine scant with one forked galaxy,-
The marsh brags ten: looped on his breast
they lie.

Oh, what if sound should be made!
Oh, what if a bound should be laid

To this bow-and-string tension of beauty and
silence a-spring.-

To the bend of beauty the bow, or the hold of silence the string!

I fear me, I fear me yon dome of diaphanous

gleam

Will break as a bubble o'er-blown in a dream,Yon dome of too-tenuous tissues of space and

night,

Over-weighted with stars, over-freighted with

light,

Over-sated with beauty and silence, will seem
But a bubble that broke in a dream,

If a bound of degree to this grace be laid,
Or a sound or a motion made.

80

90

But no: it is made: list! somewhere,--mystery,

where?

In the leaves? in the air?

In my heart? is a motion made:

'T is a motion of dawn, like a flicker of shade on shade.

In the leaves 't is palpable: low multitudinous

stirring

Upwinds through the woods; the little ones, softly conferring,

Have settled my lord's to be looked for; so, they are still;

But the air and my heart and the earth are

a-thrill,

And look where the wild duck sails round the
bend of the river,-

And look where a passionate shiver
Expectant is bending the blades

Of the marsh-grass in serial shimmers and
shades,-

And invisible wings, fast fleeting, fast fleeting, 110 Are beating

The dark overhead as my heart beats,-and steady and free

Is the ebb-tide flowing from marsh to sea(Run home, little streams,

With your lapfuls of stars and dreams),

And a sailor unseen is hoisting a-peak,
For list, down the inshore curve of the creek
How merrily flutters the sail,—

And lo, in the East! Will the East unveil?

The East is unveiled, the East hath confessed 120 A flush: 't is dead; 't is alive: 't is dead, ere

the West

Was aware of it: nay, 't is abiding, 't is unwith

drawn:

Have a care, sweet Heaven! 'T is Dawn.

Now a dream of a flame through that dream of a flush is uprolled:

To the zenith ascending, a dome of un-
dazzling gold

Is builded, in shape as a bee-hive, from out of

the sea:

The hive is of gold undazzling, but oh, the Bee, The star-fed Bee, the build-fire Bee,

Of dazzling gold is the great Sun-Bee That shall flash from the hive-hole over the

sea.

130

Yet now the dewdrop, now the morning

gray,

Shall live their little lucid sober day

Ere with the sun their souls exhale away.

Now in each pettiest personal sphere of dew
The summed moon shines complete as in the blue
Big dewdrop of all heaven: with these lit shrines
O'er silvered to the farthest sea-confines,
The sacramental marsh one pious plain
Of worship lies. Peace to the ante-reign
Of Mary Morning, blissful mother mild,
Minded of nought but peace, and of a child,

140

Not slower than Majesty moves, for a mean and a measure

Of motion,-not faster than dateless Olympian

leisure

Might pace with unblown ample garments from pleasure to pleasure,

The wave-serrate sea-rim sinks unjarring,

unreeling,

Forever revealing, revealing, revealing, Edgewise, bladewise, halfwise, whole wise,-'t is done!

Good-morrow, Lord Sun!

With several voice, with ascription one,
The woods and the marsh and the sea and my

soul

Unto thee, whence the glittering stream of all morrows doth roll,

Cry good and past good and most heavenly morrow, Lord Sun.

150

O Artisan born in the purple,-Workman Heat,Parter of passionate atoms that travail to meet And be mixed in the death-cold oneness,innermost Guest

At the marriage of elements,-fellow of publicans,-blest

King in the blouse of flame, that loiterest o'er The idle skies yet laborest past evermore,Thou, in the fine forge-thunder, thou, in the beat Of the heart of a man, thou Motive,-Laborer

Heat:

160

Yea, Artist, thou, of whose art yon sea 's all

news,

With his inshore greens and manifold mid-sea

blues,

Pearl-glint, shell-tint, ancientest, perfectest hues
Ever shaming the maidens,-lily and rose
Confess thee, and each mild flame that glows
In the clarified virginal bosoms of stones that
shine,

It is thine, it is thine:

Thou chemist of storms, whether driving the winds a-swirl

Or a-flicker the subtiler essences polar that whirl In the magnet earth,--yea, thou with a storm

for a heart, Rent with debate, many-spotted with question,

part

170

From part oft sundered, yet ever a globed 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: