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MY sister! my sweet sister! if a name | |
Dearer and purer were, it should be thine; | |
Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim | |
No tears, but tenderness to answer mine: | |
Go where I will, to me thou art the same | 5 |
A loved regret which I would not resign. | |
There yet are two things in my destiny, | |
A world to roam through, and a home with thee. | |
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The first were nothinghad I still the last, | |
It were the haven of my happiness; | 10 |
But other claims and other ties thou hast, | |
And mine is not the wish to make them less. | |
A strange doom is thy fathers sons, and past | |
Recalling, as it lies beyond redress; | |
Reversed for him our grandsires fate of yore, | 15 |
He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore. | |
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If my inheritance of storms hath been | |
In other elements, and on the rocks | |
Of perils, overlookd or unforeseen, | |
I have sustaind my share of worldly shocks, | 20 |
The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen | |
My errors with defensive paradox; | |
I have been cunning in mine overthrow, | |
The careful pilot of my proper woe. | |
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Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward. | 25 |
My whole life was a contest, since the day | |
That gave me being, gave me that which marrd | |
The gift,a fate, or will, that walkd astray; | |
And I at times have found the struggle hard, | |
And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay: | 30 |
But now I fain would for a time survive, | |
If but to see what next can well arrive. | |
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Kingdoms and empires in my little day | |
I have outlived, and yet I am not old: | |
And when I look on this, the petty spray | 35 |
Of my own years of trouble, which have rolld | |
Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away: | |
SomethingI know not whatdoes still uphold | |
A spirit of slight patience;not in vain, | |
Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain. | 40 |
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Perhaps the workings of defiance stir | |
Within me,or perhaps a cold despair, | |
Brought when ills habitually recur, | |
Perhaps a kindlier clime, or purer air, | |
(For even to this may change of soul refer, | 45 |
And with light armour we may learn to bear), | |
Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not | |
The chief companion of a calmer lot. | |
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I feel almost at times as I have felt | |
In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks, | 50 |
Which do remember me of where I dwelt | |
Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books, | |
Come as of yore upon me, and can melt | |
My heart with recognition of their looks; | |
And even at moments I could think I see | 55 |
Some living thing to lovebut none like thee. | |
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Here are the Alpine landscapes which create | |
A fund for contemplationto admire | |
Is a brief feeling of a trivial date; | |
But something worthier do such scenes inspire; | 60 |
Here to be lonely is not desolate, | |
For much I view which I could most desire, | |
And, above all, a lake I can behold | |
Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old. | |
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Oh that thou wert but with me!but I grow | 65 |
The fool of my own wishes, and forget | |
The solitude, which I have vaunted so, | |
Has lost its praise in this but one regret; | |
There may be others which I less may show! | |
I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet | 70 |
I feel an ebb in my philosophy, | |
And the tide rising in my alterd eye. | |
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I did remind thee of our own dear Lake, | |
By the old Hall which may be mine no more. | |
Lemans is fair; but think not I forsake | 75 |
The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore; | |
Sad havoc Time must with my memory make, | |
Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before; | |
Though, like all things which I have loved, they are | |
Resignd for ever, or divided far. | 80 |
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The world is all before me; I but ask | |
Of Nature that with which she will comply | |
It is but in her summers sun to bask, | |
To mingle with the quiet of her sky, | |
To see her gentle face without a mask, | 85 |
And never gaze on it with apathy. | |
She was my early friend, and now shall be | |
My sistertill I look again on thee. | |
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I can reduce all feeling but this one; | |
And that I would not;for at length I see | 90 |
Such scenes as those wherein my life begun. | |
The earliesteven the only paths for me | |
Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun, | |
I had been better than I now can be; | |
The passions which have torn me would have slept; | 95 |
I had not sufferd and thou hadst not wept. | |
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With false Ambition what had I to do? | |
Little with Love, and least of all with Fame; | |
And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, | |
And made me all which they can makea name. | 100 |
Yet this was not the end I did pursue; | |
Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. | |
But all is overI am one the more | |
To baffled millions which have gone before. | |
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And for the future, this worlds future may | 105 |
From me demand but little of my care; | |
I have outlived myself by many a day; | |
Having survived so many things that were; | |
My years have been no slumber, but the prey | |
Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share | 110 |
Of life which might have filld a century, | |
Before its fourth in time had passd me by. | |
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And for the remnant which may be to come | |
I am content; and for the past I feel | |
Not thankless,for within the crowded sum | 115 |
Of struggles, happiness at times would steal, | |
And for the present, I would not benumb | |
My feelings fartherNor shall I conceal | |
That with all this I still can look around, | |
And worship Nature with a thought profound. | 120 |
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For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart | |
I know myself secure, as thou in mine. | |
We were and areI am, even as thou art | |
Beings who neer each other can resign: | |
It is the same, together or apart, | 125 |
From lifes commencement to its slow decline | |
We are entwinedlet death come slow or fast, | |
The tie which bound the first endures the last! | |
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