Touch us gently, Time!
Let us glide adown thy stream
Gently,—as we sometimes glide
Through a quiet dream.
Humble voyagers are We,
Husband, wife, and children three—
(One is lost,—an angel, fled
To the azure overhead.)
Touch us...
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How many summers, love,
Have I been thine?
How many days, thou dove,
Hast thou been mine?
Time, like the wingèd wind
When ’t bends the flowers,
Hath left no mark behind,
To count the hours!
Some weight of thought, though...
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We are born; we laugh; we weep;
We love; we droop; we die!
Ah! wherefore do we laugh or weep?
Why do we live or die?
Who knows that secret deep?
Alas not I!
Why doth the violet spring
Unseen by human eye?
Why do...
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Softly woo away her breath,
Gentle death!
Let her leave thee with no strife,
Tender, mournful, murmuring life!
She hath seen her happy day,—
She hath had her bud and blossom;
Now she pales and shrinks away,
Earth, into thy gentle...
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Sit down, sad soul, and count
The moments flying;
Come, tell the sweet amount
That ’s lost by sighing!
How many smiles?—a score?
Then laugh, and count no more;
For day is dying!
Lie down, sad soul, and sleep,
And no more...
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Rise! Sleep no more! ’T is a noble morn.
The dews hang thick on the fringèd thorn,
And the frost shrinks back like a beaten hound,
Under the steaming, steaming ground.
Behold, where the billowy clouds flow by,
And leave us alone in the clear gray sky!...
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In the hollow tree, in the old gray tower,
The spectral owl doth dwell;
Dull, hated, despised, in the sunshine hour,
But at dusk he ’s abroad and well!
Not a bird of the forest e’er mates with him;
All mock him outright by day;
But at night,...
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Gamarra is a dainty steed,
Strong, black, and of a noble breed,
Full of fire, and full of bone,
With all his line of fathers known;
Fine his nose, his nostrils thin,
But blown abroad by the pride within!
His mane is like a river flowing,
...
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The Sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a mark, without a bound,
It runneth the earth’s wide regions round;
It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies;
Or like a cradled creature lies.
I ’m on the sea! I ’m...
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O Thou vast Ocean! ever-sounding Sea!
Thou symbol of a drear immensity!
Thou thing that windest round the solid world
Like a huge animal, which, downward hurled
From the black clouds, lies weltering and alone,
Lashing and writhing till its strength be gone...
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