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.. Spirit of BEAUTY, 1 that dost consecrate | |
With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon | |
Of human thought or form,where art thou gone? | |
Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, | |
This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? | 5 |
Ask why the sunlight not for ever | |
Weaves rainbows oer yon mountain river, | |
Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown, | |
Why fear and dream and death and birth | |
Cast on the daylight of this earth | 10 |
Such gloom,why man has such a scope | |
For love and hate, despondency and hope? | |
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No voice from some sublimer world hath ever | |
To sage or poet these responses given | |
Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven, | 15 |
Remain the records of their vain endeavour, | |
Frail spellswhose uttered charm might not avail to sever, | |
From all we hear and all we see, | |
Doubt, chance, and mutability. | |
Thy light alonelike mist oer mountains driven,
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Or moonlight on a midnight stream, | |
Gives grace and truth to lifes unquiet dream. | |
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Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart | |
And come, for some uncertain moments lent: | |
Man were immortal, and omnipotent, | 25 |
Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, | |
Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart
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While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped | |
Thro many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, | |
And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing | 30 |
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. | |
I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed; | |
I was not heardI saw them not | |
When musing deeply on the lot | |
Of life, at the sweet time when winds are wooing | 35 |
All vital things that wake to bring | |
News of birds and blossoming, | |
Sudden, thy shadow fell on me; | |
I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy! | |
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I vowed that I would dedicate my powers | 40 |
To thee and thinehave I not kept the vow? | |
With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now | |
I call the phantoms of a thousand hours | |
Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visiond bowrs | |
Of studious zeal or loves delight | 45 |
Outwatched with me the envious night | |
They know that never joy illumed my brow | |
Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free | |
This world from its dark slavery
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