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SAD Hesper o'er the buried sun

And ready, thou, to die with him, Thou watchest all things ever dim And dimmer, and a glory done: The team is loosen'd from the wain, The boat is drawn upon the shore; Thou listenest to the closing door, And life is darken'd in the brain. Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night, By thee the world's great work is heard

Beginning, and the wakeful bird; Behind thee comes the greater light: The market boat is on the stream,

And voices hail it from the brink; Thou hear'st the village hammer clink,

And see'st the moving of the team. Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name For what is one, the first, the last, Thou, like my present and my past, Thy place is changed; thou art th

same.

CXXII.

O, WAST thou with me, dearest then,
While I rose up against my doom,
And yearn'd to burst the folded
gloom,

To bare the eternal Heavens again,
To feel once more, in placid awe,

The strong imagination roll

A sphere of stars about my soul, In all her motion one with law; If thou wert with me, and the grave Divide us not, be with me now, And enter in at breast and brow, Till all my blood, a fuller wave, Be quicken'd with a livelier breath, And like an inconsiderate boy, As in the former flash of joy, I slip the thoughts of life and death; And all the breeze of Fancy blows,

And every dew-drop paints a bow, The wizard lightnings deeply glow, And every thought breaks out a rose.

CXXIII.

THERE rolls the deep where grow the tree.

O earth, what changes hast thou seen!

There where the long street roars, hath been

The stillness of the central sea.

The hills are shadows, and they flow From form to form, and nothing stands;

They melt like mist, the solid lands, Like clouds they shape themselves and go.

But in my spirit will I dwell,

And dream my dream, and hold it true;

For tho' my lips may breathe adieu, I cannot think the thing farewell.

CXXIV.

THAT which we dare invoke to bless; Our dearest faith; our ghastliest doubt;

He, They, One, All; within, without; The Power in darkness whom we guess;

I found Him not in world or sun,
Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye;
Nor thro' the questions men may try,
The petty cobwebs we have spun:
If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep,
I heard a voice "believe no more "
And heard an ever breaking shore
That tumbled in the Godless deep;
A warmth within the breast would
melt

The freezing reason's colder part, And like a man in wrath the heart Stood up and answer'd "I have felt." No, like a child in doubt and fear:

But that blind clamor made me wise; Then was I as a child that cries, But, crying, knows his father near; And what I am beheld again

What is, and no man understands; And out of darkness came the hands That reach thro' nature, moulding

men,

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AND all is well, tho' faith and form
Be sunder'd in the night of fear;
Well roars the storm to those that
hear

A deeper voice across the storm,
Proclaiming social truth shall spread,
And justice, ev'n tho' thrice again
The red fool-fury of the Seine
Should pile her barricades with dead.
But ill for him that wears a crown,

And him, the lazar, in his rags : They tremble, the sustaining crags; The spires of ice are toppled down, And molten up, and roar in flood;

The fortress crashes from on high, The brute earth lightens to the sky, And the great on sinks in blood, And compass'd by the fires of Hell; While thou, dear spirit, happy star, O'erlook'st the tumult from afar, And smilest, knowing all is well. CXXVIII.

THE love that rose on stronger wings,
Unpalsied when he met with Death,
Is comrade of the lesser faith
That sees the course of human things,

No doubt vast eddies in the flood
Of onward time shall yet be made,
And throned races may degrade;
Yet, O ye mysteries of good,
Wild Hours that fly with Hope and
Fear,

If all your office had to do

With old results that look like new; If this were all your mission here, To draw, to sheathe a useless sword,

To fool the crowd with glorious lies, To cleave a creed in sects and cries, To change the bearing of a word, To shift an arbitrary power,

To cramp the student at his desk, To make old bareness picturesque And tuft with grass a feudal tower; Why then my scorn might well descend

On you and yours. I see in part That all, as in some piece of art, Is toil cooperant to an end.

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THY Voice is on the rolling air;

I hear thee where the waters run; Thou standest in the rising sun, And in the setting thou art fair. What art thou then? I cannot guess f But tho' I seem in star and flower To feel thee some diffusive power, I do not therefore love thee less: My love involves the love before; My love is vaster passion now; Tho' mix'd with God and Nature thou,

I seem to love thee more and more.

Far off thou art, but ever nigh;
I have thee still, and I rejoice;
I prosper, circled with thy voice;
I shall not lose thee tho' I die.

CXXXI.

O LIVING will that shalt endure When all that seems shall suffer shock,

Rise in the spiritual rock, Flow thro' cur deeds and make them pure,

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And thou art worthy; full of power;
As gentle; liberal-minded, great,
Consistent; wearing all that weight
Of learning lightly like a flower.
But now set out: the noon is near,
And I must give away the bride;
She fears not, or with thee beside
And me behind her, will not fear :
For I that danced her on my knee,
That watch'd her on her nurse's arm,
That shielded all her life from harm,
At last must part with her to thee;

Their pensive tablets round her head And the most living words of life Breathed in her ear. The ring is on, The "wilt thou " answer'd, aud

The "wilt thou" ask'd, till out of

Her sweet I will" has made ye one. Now sign your names, which shall be read,

Mute symbols of a joyful morn, By village eyes as yet unborn; The names are sign'd, and overhead Begins the clash and clang that tells The joy to every wandering breeze; The blind wall rocks, and on the

The dead leaf trembles to the bells.
O happy hour, and happier hours

Await them. Many a merry face Salutes them-maidens of the place, That pelt us in the porch with flowers. O happy hour, behold the bride

With him to whom her hand I gave. They leave the porch, they pass the grave

That has to-day its sunny side.
To-day the grave is bright for me,

For them the light of life increased,
Who stay to share the morning feast,
Who rest to-night beside the sea.
Let all my genial spirits advance

To meet and greet a whiter sun; My drooping memory will not shun The foaming grape of eastern France. It circles round, and fancy plays,

And hearts are warm'd, and faces bloom,

As drinking health to bride and
groom

We wish them store of happy days.
Nor count me all to blame if I
Conjecture of a stiller guest,
Perchance, perchance, among the
rest,
And, tho' in silence, wishing joy.
But they must go, the time draws on,
And those white-favor'd horses wait;
They rise, but linger; it is late;
Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone.
A shade falls on us like the dark

From little cloudlets on the grass,
But sweeps away as out we pass
To range the woods, to roam the park,
Discussing how their courtship grew,
And talk of others that are wed,
And how she look'd, and what he
said,

And back we come at fall of dew.
Again the feast, the speech, the glee,
The shade of passing thought, the
wealth

Of words and wit. the double health,

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And last the dance; - till I retire; Dumb is that tower which spake so loud,

And high in heaven the streaming cloud,

And on the downs a rising fire:

And rise, O moon, from yonder down
Till over down and over dale
All night the shining vapor sail
And pass the silent-lighted town,
The white-faced halls, the glancing
rills,

And catch at every mountain head,
And o'er the friths that branch and

spread

Their sleeping silver thro' the hills; And touch with shade the bridal doors, With tender gloom the roof, the wali:

And breaking let the splendor fall To spangle all the happy shores By which they rest, and ocean sounds, Aud, star and system rolling past, A soul shall draw from out the vast And strike his being into bounds, And, moved thro' life of lower phase, Result in man, be born and think, And act and love, a closer link Betwixt us and the crowning race Of those that, eye to eye, shall look On knowledge; under whose com

mand

Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand

Is Nature like an open book;

No longer half-akin to brute,

For all we thought and loved and did,

And hoped, and suffer'd, is but seed Of what in them is flower and fruit; Whereof the man, that with me trod This planet, was a noble type Appearing ere the times were ripe, That friend of mine who lives in God, That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves.

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Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights

Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings

Who laid about them at their wills and died;

And mixt with these, a lady, one that armı'd

Her own fair head, and sallying thro' the gate,

Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls.

"O miracle of women," said the

book,

"O noble heart who, being strait-besieged

By this wild king to force her to his wish,

Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunn'd a soldier's death,

But now when all was lost or seem'd as lost

Her stature more than mortal in the burst

Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fire

Brake with a blast of trumpets from the gate,

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Pure sport: a herd of boys with clamor bowl'd

And stump'd the wicket; babies roll' about

Like tumbled fruit in grass; and me and maids

Arranged a country dance, and flew thro' light twangling

And shadow, while the

and

The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty

Made noise with bees and breeze from end to end.

Strange was the sight and smacking of the time;

And long we gazed, but satiated at length

Came to the ruins. High-arch'd and ivy-claspt,

Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire, Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they gave

The park, the crowd, the house; but
all within

The sward was trim as any garden lawn:
And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth,
And Lilia with the rest, and lady
friends

From neighbor seats: and there was
Ralph himself,

A broken statue propt against the wall,
Lilia, wild with sport,
As gay as any.
Half child half woman as she was, had
wound

A scarf of orange round the stony

And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk, That made the old warrior from his ivied nook**

Glow like a sunbeam: near his tomb a feast

Shone, silver-set; about it lay the guests,

And there we join'd them: then the maiden Aunt Took this fair day for text, and from it preach'd

An universal culture for the crowd, And all things great; but we, unworthier, told

Of college: he had climb'd across the spikes,

And he had squeezed himself betwixt
the bars,

And he had breath'd the Proctor's
dogs; and one
Discuss'd his tutor, rough to common

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