Eye and Hand

The Eye is a monarch, and far o’er the land
Stretches the realm of its silent command;
Far o’er the land, o’er the sea and the sky,
World upon worlds are the dower of the Eye.

The Hand is a helot outwearied and worn,
Calloused and rough with the toll it has borne,
Wearied and worn at a master’s command;
Task upon task is the lot of the Hand.

Art has wrought grandly in canvas and stone;
Ealth in her palace believed it her own;
Nay, but he wrought for my opulent Eye
Free of the splendors no treasure can buy.

Deep under ocean, and wide over land
Riches lie scattered, denied to my Hand;
Earth is a niggard, a miser the sea,
Scant and reluctant their yielding to me.

The Eye hath a treasure-vault ample to hold
Jewels unnumbered, and glories untold,—
Glories and jewels that dazzle on high;
God and His angels give wealth to the Eye.

Struggling, how painfully, bleeding and torn,
Feebly the Hand has resented the scorn,
Tossed by the rock, by the gale, and the wave,
Eager to snatch where they grudgingly gave.

Out of a world that is breathless and dumb,
Words that are spirits of vision have come
Shapes too majestic, too subtle to die, 
Throning the soul through the gate of the Eye.

Little the Hand can hold, toll as it may;
All that it grasps but encumbers its play:
Nothing it owns but the dust it has spanned,
While the Soul hungers, unfed by the Hand.

The Eye with its treasure enriches the thought,
All its fleet glories to spirit are wrought;
But riches barbaric that burden the Hand
Most drop at the gate of the Beautiful Land.