Poems (Jordan)/Man his own Ideal
MAN HIS OWN IDEAL
'Tis "as a man thinketh so is he;"His thought cannot reach himself beyond;Else would his thought the Creator beOf things which its own capacityWas not the measure to correspond!
'Tis thus that what I most love exists;If not within the body I see,Still Longing persistently insistsThat it its full satisfaction wistsHid in the fact that itself doth be!
An artist turned from his picture rare,And bitterly wept as he it surveyed,I asked, as I heard him sobbing, there,What was the cause of the deep despairWhich his emotion thus betrayed?
"Alas!" cried he, "'tis my masterpiece;Beyond that picture I cannot go!"At once I bade his mourning cease,By showing him, thus, its causelessness:—"That there is beyond, 'tis yours to show!"