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I HAVE wept a million tears: | |
Pure and proud one, where are thine, | |
What the gain though all thy years | |
In unbroken beauty shine? | |
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All your beauty cannot win | 5 |
Truth we learn in pain and sighs: | |
You can never enter in | |
To the circle of the wise. | |
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They are but the slaves of light | |
Who have never known the gloom, | 10 |
And between the dark and bright | |
Willed in freedom their own doom. | |
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Think not in your pureness there, | |
That our pain but follows sin: | |
There are fires for those who dare | 15 |
Seek the throne of might to win. | |
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Pure one, from your pride refrain: | |
Dark and lost amid the strife | |
I am myriad years of pain | |
Nearer to the fount of life. | 20 |
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When defiance fierce is thrown | |
At the god to whom you bow, | |
Rest the lips of the Unknown | |
Tenderest upon my brow. | |
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