Xliv

I find it in the fact that each soul, just as weak Its own way as its fellow,--departure from design As flagrant in the flesh,--goes striving to combine With what shall right the wrong, the under or above The standard: supplement unloveliness by love. --Ask Plato else! And this corroborates the sage, That Art,--which I may style the love of loving, rage Of knowing, seeing, feeling the absolute truth of things For truth's sake, whole and sole, not any good, truth brings The knower, seer, feeler, beside,--instinctive Art Must fumble for the whole, once fixing on a part However poor, surpass the fragment, and aspire To reconstruct thereby the ultimate entire. Art, working with a will, discards the superflux, Contributes to defect, toils on till,--fiat lux,-- There 's the restored, the prime, the individual type!