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Triumphal arch, that fill'st the sky,
When storms prepare to part,
I ask not proud Philosophy
To teach me what thou art.

Still seem, as to my childhood's sight,
A mid-way station given

For happy spirits to alight,

Betwixt the earth and heaven.

Can all that optics teach, unfold

Thy form to please me so,

As when I dreamed of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow?

When Science from Creation's face
Enchantment's veil withdraws,

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What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws!

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And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High,
Have told why first thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky.

Q

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When o'er the green undeluged earth,
Heaven's covenant thou didst shine,

How came the world's gray fathers forth
To watch thy sacred sign!

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Nor lets the type grow pale with age,
That first spoke peace to man.

Thomas Campbell.

CLXXVI

THE COMMON LOT.

Once, in the flight of ages past,

There lived a man:-and WHO was HE?-
Mortal! howe'er thy lot be cast,

That Man resembled thee.

Unknown the region of his birth,

The land in which he died unknown :
His name has perished from the earth;
This truth survives alone :-

That joy and grief, and hope and fear,
Alternate triumphed in his breast;
His bliss and woe,-a smile, a tear!—
Oblivion hides the rest.

The bounding pulse, the languid limb,
The changing spirits' rise and fall,
We know that these were felt by him,
For these are felt by all.

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He suffered, but his pangs are o'er;
Enjoyed, but his delights are fled;

Had friends, his friends are now no more;
And foes,—his foes are dead.

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He loved, but whom he loved, the grave
Hath lost in its unconscious womb :

Oh she was fair!-but nought could save
Her beauty from the tomb.

He saw whatever thou hast seen;
Encountered all that troubles thee:
He was whatever thou hast been;
He is what thou shalt be.

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The rolling seasons, day and night,

Sun, moon, and stars, the earth and main,
Erewhile his portion, life, and light,

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To him exist in vain.

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The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves

Ordered by an Intelligence so wise,

As might confound the atheist's sophistries.

Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen

Wrinkled and keen;

No grazing cattle through their prickly round
Can reach to wound;

But, as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.

I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And moralize;

And in this wisdom of the Holly Tree

Can emblems see,

Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,
One which may profit in the after-time.

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Thus, though abroad perchance I might appear

Harsh and austere;

To those who on my leisure would intrude,

Reserved and rude;

Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be,

Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.

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And should my youth, as youth is apt I know,
Some harshness show,

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All vain asperities I day by day

Would wear away,

Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.

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And as when all the summer trees are seen

So bright and green,

The Holly leaves a sober hue display

Less bright than they;

But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the Holly Tree?

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So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng;

So would I seem amid the young and gay
More grave than they;

That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the Holly Tree.

Robert Southey.

CLXXVIII

A DREAM.

Once a dream did weave a shade

O'er my angel-guarded bed,

That an emmet lost its way

Where on grass methought I lay.

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