If Thou hadst been a painter, what fresh looks, What shining of pent glories, what new grace Had burst upon us from the great Earth's face! How had we read, as in new-languaged books, Clear love of God in lone retreating nooks! A lily, as thy hand its form would trace, Were plainly seen God's child, of lower race; And, O my heart, blue hills! and grassy brooks! Thy soul lay to all undulations bare, Answering in waves. Each morn the sun did rise, And God's world woke beneath life-giving skies, Thou sawest clear thy Father's meanings there; 'Mid Earth's Ideal, and expressions rare, The ideal Man, with the eternal eyes. V. But I have looked on pictures made by man, Wherein, at first, appeared but chaos wild; So high the art transcended, it beguiled The eye as formless, and without a plan; Until the spirit, brooding o'er, began To see a purpose rise, like mountains piled, When God said: Let the dry earth, undefiled, Rise from the waves: it rose in twilight wan. And so I fear thy pictures were too strange For us to pierce beyond their outmost look; A vapour and a darkness; a sealed book; An atmosphere too high for wings to range: At God's designs our spirits pale and change, Trembling as at a void, thought cannot brook. VI. And is not Earth thy living picture, where Thou utterest beauty, simple and profound, In the same form by wondrous union bound; Where one may see the first step of the stair, And not the next, for brooding vapours there? And God is well content the starry round Should wake the infant's inarticulate sound, Or lofty song from bursting heart of prayer. And so all men of low or lofty mind, Who in their hearts hear thy unspoken word, Have lessons low or lofty, to their kind, In these thy living shows of beauty, Lord; While the child's heart that simply childlike is, Knows that the Father's face looks full in his. VII. If Thou hadst been a Poet! On my heart The thought dashed. It recoiled, as, with the gift, Light-blinded, and joy-saddened, so bereft. And the hot fountain-tears, with sudden start, Thronged to mine eyes, as if with that same smart The husk of vision had in twain been cleft, Its hidden soul in naked beauty left, And we beheld thee, Nature, as thou art. O Poet, Poet, Poet! at thy feet I should have lien, sainted with listening; My pulses answering aye, in rhythmic beat, Each parting word that with melodious wing Moved on, creating still my being sweet; My soul thy harp, thy word the quivering string. VIII.