SNOWY-SMOOTH beneath the pen? 
 Richest field that iron ploughs, 
Germinating thoughts of men, 
 Tho? no heaven its rain allows. 
 
There they ripen, thousand-fold; 
 And our spirits reap the corn, 
In a day-long dream of gold? 
 Food for all the souls unborn. 
 
Like the murmur of the earth, 
 When we listen stooping low, 
Like sap singing nature?s mirth 
 Foaming up the trees that grow. 
 
Evermore a subtle song 
 Sings the pen unto it, while 
Fluid idea flows along, 
 Each new Era?s mother-Nile. 
 
Greater than ensphering Sea, 
 For it holds the sea and land; 
Seed of every deed to be 
 Down its current borne like sand. 
 
I caress thy surface sheer, 
 Holding thee the Absolute; 
Where the things to be inhere, 
 Waiting their material bruit. 
 
How I love thee! my heart?s blood 
 Were too dull to smutch thy white! 
I?ll aver: no lily?s bud 
 Lays such unction on my sight. 
 
Suave of maiden?s throat or arm, 
 Bliss embodied to the touch, 
Has not such ambrosial charm? 
 Not a marble Goddess such! 
 
Dear White Paper! All To-day 
 Palpitates with spirit-heat? 
Only on thy whiteness may 
 Seers translate its rhythms sweet! 
 
Holy Paper! all the Past 
 Were a rack of ruined cloud 
Stripping from our orbit vast, 
 But thou Eternity endowed 
 
With an actual soul of speech? 
 Life of life by death distilled? 
That all dateless days shall reach, 
 As life?s vine of veins is filled. 
 
O, the glorious Heavens wrought 
 By Cadmean souls of yore 
From pure element of Thought! 
 And thy leaves their silvern door! 
 
Light they open, and we stand 
 Past the sovereignty of Fate; 
Glad among Them, still and grand, 
 The Creators and Create