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| BUT now the Dream has come again, the world is as of old. | |
| Once more I feel about my breast the heartening splendors fold. | |
| Now I am back in that good place from which my footsteps came, | |
| And I am hushed of any grief and have laid by my shame. | |
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| I know not by what road I came—oh wonderful and fair! | 5 |
| Only I know I ailed for thee and that thou wert not there. | |
| Then suddenly Time’s stalwart wall before thee did divide, | |
| Its solid bastions dreamed and swayed and there was I inside. | |
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| It is thy nearness makes thee seem so wonderful and far. | |
| In that deep sky thou art obscured as in the noon, a star. | 10 |
| But when the darkness of my grief swings up the mid-day sky, | |
| My need begets a shining world. Lo, in thy light am I. | |
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| All that I used to be is there and all I yet shall be. | |
| My laughter deepens in the air, my quiet in the tree. | |
| My utter tremblings of delight are manna from the sky, | 15 |
| And shining flower-like in the grass my innocencies lie. | |
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| And here I run and sleep and laugh and have no name at all. | |
| Only if God should speak to me then I would heed the call. | |
| And I forget the curious ways, the alien looks of men, | |
| For even as it was of old, so is it now again. | 20 |
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| Still every angel looks the same and all the folks are there | |
| That are so bounteous and mild and have not any care. | |
| But kindest to me is the one I would most choose to be. | |
| She is so beautiful and sheds such loving looks on me. | |
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| She is so beautiful—and lays her cheek against my own. | 25 |
| Back—in the world—they all will say, “How happy you have grown.” | |
| Her breath is sweet about my eyes and she has healed me now, | |
| Though I be scarred with grief, I keep her kiss upon my brow. | |
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| All day, sweet land, I fight for thee outside the goodly wall, | |
| And ’twixt my breathless wounds I have no sight of thee at all! | 30 |
| And sometimes I forget thy looks and what thy ways may be! | |
| I have denied thou wert at all—yet still I fight for thee. | |
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