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O CLOTHED in purple, flushed with wine, | |
Keen-eyed for beauty, skilled in art, | |
That only lack the sense divine, | |
The beatings of a human heart, | |
Draw near and list the strange and wondrous tale, | 5 |
The hidden things of death that lie behind the veil. | |
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Ye watch the sparkling wine-beads float | |
In crystal cup, with languid eyes, | |
Each shade of savour duly note, | |
As painter marks a sunsets skies, | 10 |
Praise the wrought bronze, and smiling Hebes bust, | |
Where sculptors cunning hands meet the eyes wandering lust. | |
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Arts treasures, gems and gold, ye heap, | |
Toils of far lands, and distant time | |
On couch of softest down ye sleep, | 15 |
And list to poets strains sublime, | |
Ye carve the cedar column, gild the floor, | |
And Lazarus, clothed in rags, lies starving at your door. | |
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Ye have your joy, while life is fresh, | |
Ye pamper eye and ear and taste, | 20 |
Meet every wish of world and flesh, | |
And heedless live in wanton waste; | |
Your revel mirth still waxes more and more, | |
Yet Lazarus, worn and pale, lies starving at your door. | |
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So is it now, but soon or late, | 25 |
There comes the chill of darkness born; | |
Your house is left you desolate, | |
Ye linger in an age outworn, | |
And no faint pulses of a former sense | |
Can soothe the gnawing pain of weariness intense. | 30 |
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Then shall ye ask, but all in vain, | |
For strength to catch the fleeting hours; | |
Ah, who will give you once again | |
Lifes glowing dawn, its opening flowers? | |
Renew in age when every leaf is sere, | 35 |
The brightness of your youth, the springtide of the year? | |
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And oh, if this be presage true, | |
Of that which lies beyond the tomb, | |
If there no breadth of sky is blue, | |
But darkness all and deepening gloom; | 40 |
If Dives lifts in pain his weary eyes, | |
And Lazarus rests at last in groves of Paradise, | |
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Oh learn ye, learn; be wise in time, | |
Set heart and soul on things above, | |
See glory in the strife with crime, | 45 |
See beauty in each act of love; | |
Above all charm of art and mans device, | |
Set ye the smile of God, the bliss beyond all price. | |
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For those whose hearts are tuned aright, | |
Gods world will ope its treasures rare, | 50 |
New glories when the dawn is bright, | |
New wonders in each floweret fair; | |
Seek beauty only and ye fail to find; | |
Seek good, and beauty floats to eye and ear and mind. | |
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Full soon the laugh of revel mirth | 55 |
Dies out; the blazing thorns grow cold; | |
The heirs of Heaven are heirs of earth, | |
They taste the joy that grows not old; | |
Een with the worlds false mammon make they friends, | |
And in the tents abide whose glory never ends. | 60 |
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