The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 29, March, 1860

As in their demigod they see
Their swart ideal soaring free;
'Tis thou that bear'st the fire about,
Which, like the springing of a mine,
Sends up to heaven the street-long shout:
Full well I know that thou wast here;
That was thy breath that thrilled mine ear;
But vainly, in the stress and whirl,
I dive for thee, the moment's pearl.

Through every shape thou well canst run,
Proteus, 'twixt rise and set of sun,
Well pleased with logger-camps in Maine
As where Milan's pale Duomo lies
A stranded glacier on the plain,
Its peaks and pinnacles of ice
Melted in many a quaint device,
And sees, across the city's din,
Afar its silent Alpine kin;
I track thee over carpets deep
To Wealth's and Beauty's inmost keep;
Across the sand of bar-room floors,
'Mid the stale reek of boosing boors;
Where drowse the hayfield's fragrant heats,
Or the flail-heart of Autumn beats;
I dog thee through the market's throngs,
To where the sea with myriad tongues
Laps the green fringes of the pier,
And the tall ships that eastward steer
Curtsy their farewells to the town,
O'er the curved distance lessening down;—
I follow allwhere for thy sake,—
Touch thy robe's hem, but ne'er o'ertake,—
Find where, scarce yet unmoving, lies,
Warm from thy limbs, their last disguise,—
But thou another mask hast donned,
And lurest still, just, just, beyond!

But here a voice, I know not whence,
Thrills clearly through mine inward sense,
Saying, "See where she sits at home,
While thou in search of her dost roam!
All summer long her ancient wheel
Whirls humming by the open door,
Or, when the hickory's social zeal
Sets the wide chimney in a roar,
Close-nestled by the tinkling hearth,
It modulates the household mirth
With that sweet, serious undertone
Of Duty, music all her own;
Still, as of old, she sits and spins
Our hopes, our sorrows, and our sins;
With equal care she twines the fates
Of cottages and mighty states;
She spins the earth, the air, the sea,
The maiden's unschooled fancy free,
The boy's first love, the man's first grief,
The budding and the fall o' the leaf;
The piping west-wind's snowy care
For her their cloudy fleeces spare,
Or from the thorns of evil times
She can glean wool to twist her rhymes;
Morning and noon and eve supply
To her their fairest tints for dye,
But ever through her twirling thread
There spires one strand of warmest red,
Tinged from the homestead's genial heart,
The stamp and warrant of her art;
With this Time's sickle she outwears,
And blunts the Sisters' baffled shears.

"Harass her not; thy heat and stir
The greater coyness breed in her:
Yet thou may'st find, ere Age's frost,
Thy long apprenticeship not lost,
Learning at last that Stygian Fate
Supples for him that knows to wait.
The Muse is womanish, nor deigns
Her love to him who pules and plains;
With proud, averted face she stands
To him who wooes with empty hands.
Make thyself free of manhood's guild;
Pull down thy barns and greater build;
The wood, the mountain, and the plain
Wave breast-deep with the poet's grain;
Pluck thou the sunset's fruit of gold;
Glean from the heavens and ocean old;
From fireside lone and trampling street
Let thy life garner daily wheat;
The epic of a man rehearse,
Be something better than thy verse,
Make thyself rich, and then the Muse
Shall court thy precious interviews,
Shall take thy head upon her knee,
And such enchantment lilt to thee,
That thou shalt hear the lifeblood flow
From farthest stars to grass-blades low,
And find the Listener's science still
Transcends the Singer's deepest skill!"