274 lines
9.8 KiB
Plaintext
274 lines
9.8 KiB
Plaintext
1827
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TAMERLANE
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by Edgar Allan Poe
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TAMERLANE
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Kind solace in a dying hour!
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Such, father, is not (now) my theme-
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I will not madly deem that power
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Of Earth may shrive me of the sin
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Unearthly pride hath revell'd in-
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I have no time to dote or dream:
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You call it hope- that fire of fire!
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It is but agony of desire:
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If I can hope- Oh God! I can-
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Its fount is holier- more divine-
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I would not call thee fool, old man,
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But such is not a gift of thine.
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Know thou the secret of a spirit
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Bow'd from its wild pride into shame.
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O yearning heart! I did inherit
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Thy withering portion with the fame,
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The searing glory which hath shone
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Amid the jewels of my throne,
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Halo of Hell! and with a pain
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Not Hell shall make me fear again-
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O craving heart, for the lost flowers
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And sunshine of my summer hours!
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The undying voice of that dead time,
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With its interminable chime,
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Rings, in the spirit of a spell,
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Upon thy emptiness- a knell.
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I have not always been as now:
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The fever'd diadem on my brow
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I claim'd and won usurpingly-
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Hath not the same fierce heirdom given
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Rome to the Caesar- this to me?
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The heritage of a kingly mind,
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And a proud spirit which hath striven
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Triumphantly with human kind.
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On mountain soil I first drew life:
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The mists of the Taglay have shed
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Nightly their dews upon my head,
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And, I believe, the winged strife
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And tumult of the headlong air
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Have nestled in my very hair.
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So late from Heaven- that dew- it fell
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(Mid dreams of an unholy night)
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Upon me with the touch of Hell,
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While the red flashing of the light
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From clouds that hung, like banners, o'er,
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Appeared to my half-closing eye
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The pageantry of monarchy,
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And the deep trumpet-thunder's roar
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Came hurriedly upon me, telling
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Of human battle, where my voice,
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My own voice, silly child!- was swelling
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(O! how my spirit would rejoice,
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And leap within me at the cry)
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The battle-cry of Victory!
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The rain came down upon my head
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Unshelter'd- and the heavy wind
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Rendered me mad and deaf and blind.
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It was but man, I thought, who shed
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Laurels upon me: and the rush-
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The torrent of the chilly air
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Gurgled within my ear the crush
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Of empires- with the captive's prayer-
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The hum of suitors- and the tone
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Of flattery 'round a sovereign's throne.
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My passions, from that hapless hour,
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Usurp'd a tyranny which men
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Have deem'd, since I have reach'd to power,
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My innate nature- be it so:
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But father, there liv'd one who, then,
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Then- in my boyhood- when their fire
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Burn'd with a still intenser glow,
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(For passion must, with youth, expire)
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E'en then who knew this iron heart
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In woman's weakness had a part.
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I have no words- alas!- to tell
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The loveliness of loving well!
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Nor would I now attempt to trace
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The more than beauty of a face
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Whose lineaments, upon my mind,
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Are- shadows on th' unstable wind:
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Thus I remember having dwelt
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Some page of early lore upon,
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With loitering eye, till I have felt
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The letters- with their meaning- melt
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To fantasies- with none.
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O, she was worthy of all love!
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Love- as in infancy was mine-
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'Twas such as angel minds above
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Might envy; her young heart the shrine
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On which my every hope and thought
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Were incense- then a goodly gift,
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For they were childish and upright-
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Pure- as her young example taught:
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Why did I leave it, and, adrift,
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Trust to the fire within, for light?
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We grew in age- and love- together,
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Roaming the forest, and the wild;
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My breast her shield in wintry weather-
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And when the friendly sunshine smil'd,
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And she would mark the opening skies,
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I saw no Heaven- but in her eyes.
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Young Love's first lesson is- the heart:
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For 'mid that sunshine, and those smiles,
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When, from our little cares apart,
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And laughing at her girlish wiles,
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I'd throw me on her throbbing breast,
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And pour my spirit out in tears-
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There was no need to speak the rest-
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No need to quiet any fears
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Of her- who ask'd no reason why,
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But turn'd on me her quiet eye!
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Yet more than worthy of the love
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My spirit struggled with, and strove,
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When, on the mountain peak, alone,
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Ambition lent it a new tone-
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I had no being- but in thee:
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The world, and all it did contain
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In the earth- the air- the sea-
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Its joy- its little lot of pain
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That was new pleasure- the ideal,
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Dim vanities of dreams by night-
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And dimmer nothings which were real-
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(Shadows- and a more shadowy light!)
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Parted upon their misty wings,
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And, so, confusedly, became
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Thine image, and- a name- a name!
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Two separate- yet most intimate things.
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I was ambitious- have you known
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The passion, father? You have not:
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A cottager, I mark'd a throne
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Of half the world as all my own,
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And murmur'd at such lowly lot-
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But, just like any other dream,
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Upon the vapour of the dew
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My own had past, did not the beam
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Of beauty which did while it thro'
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The minute- the hour- the day- oppress
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My mind with double loveliness.
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We walk'd together on the crown
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Of a high mountain which look'd down
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Afar from its proud natural towers
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Of rock and forest, on the hills-
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The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers,
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And shouting with a thousand rills.
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I spoke to her of power and pride,
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But mystically- in such guise
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That she might deem it nought beside
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The moment's converse; in her eyes
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I read, perhaps too carelessly-
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A mingled feeling with my own-
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The flush on her bright cheek, to me
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Seem'd to become a queenly throne
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Too well that I should let it be
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Light in the wilderness alone.
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I wrapp'd myself in grandeur then,
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And donn'd a visionary crown-
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Yet it was not that Fantasy
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Had thrown her mantle over me-
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But that, among the rabble- men,
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Lion ambition is chained down-
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And crouches to a keeper's hand-
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Not so in deserts where the grand-
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The wild- the terrible conspire
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With their own breath to fan his fire.
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Look 'round thee now on Samarcand!
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Is not she queen of Earth? her pride
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Above all cities? in her hand
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Their destinies? in all beside
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Of glory which the world hath known
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Stands she not nobly and alone?
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Falling- her veriest stepping-stone
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Shall form the pedestal of a throne-
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And who her sovereign? Timour- he
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Whom the astonished people saw
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Striding o'er empires haughtily
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A diadem'd outlaw!
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O, human love! thou spirit given
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On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!
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Which fall'st into the soul like rain
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Upon the Siroc-wither'd plain,
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And, failing in thy power to bless,
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But leav'st the heart a wilderness!
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Idea! which bindest life around
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With music of so strange a sound,
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And beauty of so wild a birth-
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Farewell! for I have won the Earth.
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When Hope, the eagle that tower'd, could see
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No cliff beyond him in the sky,
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His pinions were bent droopingly-
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And homeward turn'd his soften'd eye.
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'Twas sunset: when the sun will part
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There comes a sullenness of heart
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To him who still would look upon
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The glory of the summer sun.
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That soul will hate the ev'ning mist,
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So often lovely, and will list
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To the sound of the coming darkness (known
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To those whose spirits hearken) as one
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Who, in a dream of night, would fly
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But cannot from a danger nigh.
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What tho' the moon- the white moon
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Shed all the splendour of her noon,
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Her smile is chilly, and her beam,
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In that time of dreariness, will seem
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(So like you gather in your breath)
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A portrait taken after death.
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And boyhood is a summer sun
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Whose waning is the dreariest one-
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For all we live to know is known,
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And all we seek to keep hath flown-
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Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall
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With the noon-day beauty- which is all.
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I reach'd my home- my home no more
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For all had flown who made it so.
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I pass'd from out its mossy door,
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And, tho' my tread was soft and low,
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A voice came from the threshold stone
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Of one whom I had earlier known-
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O, I defy thee, Hell, to show
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On beds of fire that burn below,
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A humbler heart- a deeper woe.
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Father, I firmly do believe-
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I know- for Death, who comes for me
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From regions of the blest afar,
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Where there is nothing to deceive,
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Hath left his iron gate ajar,
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And rays of truth you cannot see
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Are flashing thro' Eternity-
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I do believe that Eblis hath
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A snare in every human path-
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Else how, when in the holy grove
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I wandered of the idol, Love,
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Who daily scents his snowy wings
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With incense of burnt offerings
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From the most unpolluted things,
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Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven
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Above with trellis'd rays from Heaven,
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No mote may shun- no tiniest fly-
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The lightning of his eagle eye-
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How was it that Ambition crept,
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Unseen, amid the revels there,
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Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt
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In the tangles of Love's very hair?
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-THE END-
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