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| SPIRIT, that from the breathing south, | |
| Art wafted hither on dewy wing, | |
| By the soften’d light of that sunny eye, | |
| And that voice of wild-wood melody, | |
| And those golden tresses wantoning, | 5 |
| And the perfumed breath of that balmy mouth. | |
| We know thee, Spirit of Spring— | |
| Spirit of beauty, these thy charms, Spirit of Spring! | |
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| Spirit of Spring! thou com’st to wake | |
| The slumbering energies of earth; | 10 |
| The zephyr’s breath, to thee we owe, | |
| Thine is the streamlet’s silver flow, | |
| And thine, the gentle flowerets’ birth, | |
| And their silence, hark! the wild birds break, | |
| For thy welcome, Spirit of Spring!— | 15 |
| Spirit of life, thy triumphs these, Spirit of Spring! | |
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| Spirit of Spring! when the cheek is pale, | |
| There is health in thy balmy air, | |
| And peace in that brow of beaming bright, | |
| And joy in that eye of sunny light, | 20 |
| And golden hope in that flowing hair: | |
| Oh! that such influence e’er should fail, | |
| For a moment, Spirit of Spring— | |
| Spirit of health, peace, joy and hope, Spirit of Spring! | |
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| Yet fail it must—for it comes of earth, | 25 |
| And it may not shame its place of birth, | |
| Where the best can bloom but a single day, | |
| And the fairest is first to fade away. | |
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| But oh! there’s a changeless world above, | |
| A world of peace, and joy, and love, | 30 |
| Where, gather’d from the tomb, | |
| The holy hopes that earth has cross’d, | |
| And the pious friends that we loved and lost | |
| Immortally shall bloom. | |
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| Who will not watch, and strive, and pray, | 35 |
| That his longing soul may soar away, | |
| On faith’s untiring wing, | |
| To join the throng of the saints in light, | |
| In that world, for ever fair and bright, | |
| Of endless, cloudless SPRING! | 40 |
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