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Doth o'er us pass, when, as th' expanding eye
To the loved object, so the tear to the lid

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Will start, which lately slept in apathy?

And yet it need not be

(that object) hid

From us in life but common

which doth lie

Each hour before us - but then only, bid

With a strange sound, as of a harp-string broken,
To awake us — -'T is a symbol and a token

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Of what in other worlds shall be - and given
In beauty by our God, to those alone
Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven
Drawn by their heart's passion, and that tone,
That high tone of the spirit which hath striven,
Tho' not with Faith with godliness

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With desperate energy 't hath beaten down ;
Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.

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A DREAM.

IN visions of the dark night

I have dreamed of joy departedBut a waking dream of life and light Hath left me broken-hearted.

Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past ?

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That holy dream that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
A lonely spirit guiding.

What though that light, thro' storm and night,

So trembled from afar

What could there be more purely bright

In Truth's day-star?

"THE HAPPIEST DAY, THE HAPPIEST HOUR."

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THE happiest day the happiest hour

My seared and blighted heart hath known,
The highest hope of pride and power,
I feel hath flown.

Of

power ! said I? yes ! such I ween;
But they have vanish'd long, alas !
The visions of my youth have been
But let them pass.

And, pride, what have I now with thee?
Another brow may even inherit
The venom thou hast pour'd on me
Be still, my spirit!

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The happiest day -the happiest hour
Mine eyes shall see · have ever seen,
The brightest glance of pride and power,
I feel- have been:

But were that hope of pride and power
Now offer'd, with the pain
Even then I felt that brightest hour
I would not live again :

For on its wing was dark alloy,

And as it flutter'd - fell

An essence - powerful to destroy
A soul that knew it well.

THE LAKE: TO

IN spring of youth it was my lot
To haunt of the wide world a spot
The which I could not love the less
So lovely was the loneliness

Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
And the tall pines that towered around.

But when the Night had thrown her pall
Upon that spot, as upon all,

And the mystic wind went by
Murmuring in melody-

Then ah then I would awake
To the terror of the lone lake.

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A feeling, not the jewelled mine

Could teach or bribe me to define

Nor Love - although the Love were thine.

Death was in that poisonous wave,

And in its gulf a fitting grave

For him who thence could solace bring

To his lone imagining

Whose solitary soul could make

An Eden of that dim lake.

SONNETTO SCIENCE.

SCIENCE! true daughter of Old Time thou art !
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,

Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?

Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

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