Brother Artist!

Brother artist, help me; come!         Artists are a maimed band:         I have words but not a hand;     Thou hast hands though thou art dumb.     Had I thine, when words did fail--         Vassal-words their hasting chief,         On the white awaiting leaf     Shapes of power should tell the tale.     Had I hers of music-might,         I would shake the air with storm         Till the red clouds trailed enorm     Boreal dances through the night.     Had I his whose foresight rare         Piles the stones with lordliest art,         From the quarry of my heart     Love should climb a heavenly stair!     Had I his whose wooing slow         Wins the marble's hidden child,         Out in passion undefiled     Stood my Psyche, white as snow!     Maimed, a little help I pray;         Words suffice not for my end;         Let thy hand obey thy friend,     Say for me what I would say.     Draw me, on an arid plain         With hoar-headed mountains nigh,         Under a clear morning sky     Telling of a night of rain,     Huge and half-shaped, like a block         Chosen for sarcophagus         By a Pharaoh glorious,     One rude solitary rock.     Cleave it down along the ridge         With a fissure yawning deep         To the heart of the hard heap,     Like the rent of riving wedge.     Through the cleft let hands appear,         Upward pointed with pressed palms         As if raised in silent psalms     For salvation come anear.     Turn thee now--'tis almost done!--         To the near horizon's verge:         Make the smallest arc emerge     Of the forehead of the sun.     One thing more--I ask too much!--         From a brow which hope makes brave         Sweep the shadow of the grave     With a single golden touch.     Thanks, dear painter; that is all.         If thy picture one day should         Need some words to make it good,     I am ready to thy call.