ACCIDENT IN ART.

That painter has not with a careless smutch

Accomplished his despair?— one touch revealing

All he had put of life, thought, vigor, feeling,

Into the canvas that without that touch

Showed of his love and labor just so much

Raw pigment, scarce a scrap of soul concealing!

What poet has not found his spirit kneeling

A sudden at the sound of such or such

Strange verses staring from his manuscript,

Written he knows not how, but which will sound

Like trumpets down the years? So Accident

Itself unmasks the likeness of Intent,

And ever in blind Chance's darkest crypt

The shrine-lamp of God's purposing is found.