| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
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| Thyself |
| | | John Addington Symonds (1840–93) |
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| GIVE me thyself! It were as well to cry: | |
| Give me the splendor of this night of June! | |
| Give me yon star upon the swart lagoon | |
| Trembling in unapproach’d serenity! | |
| Our gondola, that four swift oarsmen ply, | 5 |
| Shoots from the darkening Lido’s sandy dune, | |
| Splits with her steel the mirrors of the moon, | |
| Shivers the star-beams that before us fly. | |
| Give me thyself! This prayer is even a knell, | |
| Warning me back to mine own impotence. | 10 |
| Self gives not self; and souls sequester’d dwell | |
| In the dark fortalice of thought and sense, | |
| Where, though life’s prisoners call from cell to cell, | |
| Each pines alone and may not issue thence. | |
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