Read "Art (Poems from Timoleon)" by Herman Melville online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
In placid hours well-pleased we dream / Of many a brave unbodied scheme.
But form to lend, pulsed life create, / What unlike things must meet and mate: / A flame to melt-a wind to freeze; / Sad patience-joyous energies; / Humility-yet pride and scorn; / Instinct and study; love and hate; / Audacity-reverence. These must mate, / And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart, / To wrestle with the angel-Art.