THE ARTIST.
For the Table Book.
He is a being of deep reflection,—one
That studies nature with intensest eye;
Watching the works of air, earth, sea, and sun,
Their motion, altitude, their form, their dye,
Cause and effect. The elements which run,
Or stagnant are, he traces to their source
With vivid study, till his pencil makes
A perfect likeness; or, by fancy’s force
A new creation in his art he takes,
And matches nature’s progress in his course
Towards glory. In th’ abstractions of the mind,
Harmony, passion, and identity,
His genius, like the summer sun, is shrined,
Till beauty and perfection he can see.
———.