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BY the blue tapers trembling light, | |
No more I waste the wakeful night, | |
Intent with endless view to pore | |
The schoolmen and the sages oer: | |
Their books from wisdom widely stray, | 5 |
Or point at best the longest way. | |
I ll seek a readier path, and go | |
Where wisdom s surely taught below. | |
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How deep yon azure dyes the sky, | |
Where orbs of gold unnumberd lie, | 10 |
While through their ranks in silver pride | |
The nether crescent seems to glide! | |
The slumbering breeze forgets to breathe, | |
The lake is smooth and clear beneath, | |
Where once again the spangled show | 15 |
Descends to meet our eyes below. | |
The grounds which on the right aspire, | |
In dimness from the view retire: | |
The left presents a place of graves, | |
Whose wall the silent water laves | 20 |
That steeple guides thy doubtful sight | |
Among the livid gleams of night. | |
There pass, with melancholy state, | |
By all the solemn heaps of fate, | |
And think, as softly-sad you tread | 25 |
Above the venerable dead, | |
Time was, like thee they life possest, | |
And time shall be, that thou shalt rest. | |
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Those graves, with bending osier bound, | |
That nameless heave the crumbled ground, | 30 |
Quick to the glancing thought disclose, | |
Where toil and poverty repose. | |
The flat smooth stones that bear a name, | |
The chisels slender help to fame, | |
(Which ere our set of friends decay | 35 |
Their frequent steps may wear away,) | |
A middle race of mortals own, | |
Men, half ambitious, all unknown. | |
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The marble tombs that rise on high, | |
Whose dead in vaulted arches lie, | 40 |
Whose pillars swell with sculpturd stones, | |
Arms, angels, epitaphs, and bones, | |
These, all the poor remains of state, | |
Adorn the rich, or praise the great; | |
Who while on earth in fame they live, | 45 |
Are senseless of the fame they give. | |
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Ha! while I gaze, pale Cynthia fades, | |
The bursting earth unveils the shades! | |
All slow, and wan, and wrappd with shrouds, | |
They rise in visionary crowds, | 50 |
And all with sober accent cry, | |
Think, mortal, what it is to die. | |
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