I seek the strongest image I can find
to fill the empty canvas waiting there.
I welcome all rough discord in my mind,
each shadowy contender, with no care
for conflict's cost, if there be victory,
if, when at last I charge my brush with paint,
one mighty thought has gained the mastery,
and rules my hand's next moves without restraint.
But someday I will paint the final stroke.
And none will know then of this bumptious start,
when craft has shaped the lines and hues, and smoke
has long since cleared to show, beyond my art,
what has been done. That day it will be clear
if Beauty, or mere Truth, was sovereign here.


Hat tip to Edgar Allan Poe,
and his criticisms of Longfellow's "Moral" poems.