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for this i make thee free and now thyself art loveliest in mine eyes i look and lo
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with that she answered let this woman sir find grace and favor in your sight
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but yet said he o yet if there be respite for the terrible the proud yea such as scorn thee and if not
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and at his feet the wives of his two other sons did kneel and wring their hands
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o is it come to this he answered them the door is shut
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the quivering butterflies in companies that slowly crept adown the sandy marge like living crocus beds
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special thanks to oliver darmstaedter wiebke schuck and thomas schaich for their help deciphering the old german font used for the poem `an frau nannette falk-auerbach
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a birthday song to s g
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i will make to thee a little confession of faith telling thee my dearer self in words what i do not say to my not-so-dear-self except in more modest feeling
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mrs lanier's own words as written in the brief annals of his life furnished me will tell the end
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this is not the place for an essay on the genius of sidney lanier it is enough to call attention to some marked points in his character and work
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whitman is poetry's butcher huge raw collops slashed from the rump of poetry and never mind gristle is what whitman feeds our souls with
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as near as i can make it out whitman's argument seems to be that because a prairie is wide therefore debauchery is admirable and because the mississippi is long therefore every american is god
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liberty patriotism and civilization are on their knees before the men of the south and with clasped hands and straining eyes are begging them to become christians
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the boy's percy being old ballads of war adventure and love from bishop thomas percy's reliques of ancient english poetry
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the english novel and the principles of its development crown vo pp charles scribner's sons new york
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tell me sweet burly-bark'd man-bodied tree that mine arms in the dark are embracing dost know from what fount are these tears at thy feet which flow
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my gossip the owl is it thou that out of the leaves of the low-hanging bough as i pass to the beach art stirred
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oh what if a bound should be laid to this bow-and-string tension of beauty and silence a-spring to the bend of beauty the bow or the hold of silence the string
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in my heart is a motion made 'tis a motion of dawn like a flicker of shade on shade
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yet now the dew-drop now the morning gray shall live their little lucid sober day ere with the sun their souls exhale away
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still-eyed and shadow-brow'd steal off from yon far-drifting crowd and come and brood upon the marsh with me
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what the cloud doeth the lord knoweth the cloud knoweth not
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what the artist doeth the lord knoweth knoweth the artist not
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how poor how strange how wrong to dream he wrote the little song i made to him with love's unforced design
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i work in freedom wild but work as plays a little child sure of the father self and love alone
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inward and outward to northward and southward the beach-lines linger and curl as a silver-wrought garment that clings to and follows the firm sweet limbs of a girl
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somehow my soul seems suddenly free from the weighing of fate and the sad discussion of sin by the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of glynn
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the midmorn empties you of men save me speak to your lover meadows none can hear
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i lie as lies yon placid brandywine holding the hills and heavens in my heart for contemplation
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woods and wet pillows this was all this ox
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from here to where the louder passions dwell green leagues of hilly separation roll trade ends where yon far clover ridges swell
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but oh not the hills of habersham and oh not the valleys of hall avail: i am fain for to water the plain
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with one poor word they tell me all they know whereat their stupid tongues to tease my pain do drawl it o'er again and o'er again
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then down he shot bounced airily along the sward twitched in a grasshopper made song midflight perched prinked and to his art again
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sweet science this large riddle read me plain how may the death of that dull insect be the life of yon trim shakespeare on the tree
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burn golden globes in leafy sky my orange-planets: crimson i will shine and shoot among the spheres
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then he sounded and down came kinsmen and clansmen all ten blows for ten tine on his back let fall and reckon no stroke if the blood follow not at the bite of thong
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they follow mad hamish afar up the crag toward the sea and the lady cries: clansmen run for a fee yon castle and lands to the two first hands that shall hook him and hold
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fast hamish back from the brink and ever she flies up the steep and the clansmen pant and they sweat and they jostle and strain
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when the last stroke fell then he moved him a pace down the height and he held forth the child in the heartaching sight of the mother and looked all pitiful grave as repenting a wrong
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e'en when thou strivest there within art's sky full calm thine image in our love doth lie a motion glassed in a tranquillity
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frowning the owl in the oak complained him sore that the song of the robin restrained him wrongly of slumber rudely of rest
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and cannot you walk now bah don't hop
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soul could'st thou bare thy breast as yon red rose and dare the day all clean and large and calm with velvet rest
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to-day the woods are trembling through and through with shimmering forms that flash before my view then melt in green as dawn-stars melt in blue
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i pray with mosses ferns and flowers shy that hide like gentle nuns from human eye to lift adoring perfumes to the sky
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i hear faint bridal-sighs of brown and green dying to silent hints of kisses keen as far lights fringe into a pleasant sheen
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i start at fragmentary whispers blown from undertalks of leafy souls unknown vague purports sweet of inarticulate tone
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thus without theft i reap another's field thus without tilth i house a wondrous yield and heap my heart with quintuple crops concealed
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scorning the slow reward of patient grain he sowed his heart with hopes of swifter gain then sat him down and waited for the rain
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he sailed in borrowed ships of usury a foolish jason on a treacherous sea seeking the fleece and finding misery
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lulled by smooth-rippling loans in idle trance he lay content that unthrift circumstance should plough for him the stony field of chance
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yea gathering crops whose worth no man might tell he staked his life on games of buy-and-sell and turned each field into a gambler's hell
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aye as each year declined with bitter heart and ever-brooding mind he mourned his fate unkind
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then worn and gray and sick with deep unrest he fled away into the oblivious west unmourned unblest
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o trade o trade would thou wert dead
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swinehood hath no remedy say many men and hasten by clamping the nose and blinking the eye
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but who said once in the lordly tone man shall not live by bread alone but all that cometh from the throne
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does business mean `die you live i then `trade is trade' but sings a lie 'tis only war grown miserly
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if business is battle name it so war-crimes less will shame it so and widows less will blame it so
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alas for the poor to have some part in yon sweet living lands of art makes problem not for head but heart
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i am not overbold i hold full powers from nature manifold
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the nymphs cold creatures of man's colder brain chilled nature's streams till man's warm heart was fain never to lave its love in them again
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later a sweet voice `love thy neighbor' said then first the bounds of neighborhood outspread beyond all confines of old ethnic dread
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but oh the poor the poor the poor
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alas when sighs are traders' lies and heart's-ease eyes and violet eyes are merchandise
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ah not in these cold merchantable days deem men their life an opal gray where plays the one red sweet of gracious ladies'-praise
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i'll prove that lie upon his head or i will die instead fair lady
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nor time hath changed his hair to white nor his dear love to spite fair lady
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and then the hautboy played and smiled and sang like any large-eyed child cool-hearted and all undefiled
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yet more i learn while friend i sit by thee who sees all time sees all eternity
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howe'er thou turn'st wrong earth still love's in sight for we are taller than the breadth of night
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time hurry my love to me haste haste lov'st not good company
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oh would that i might divine thy name beyond the zodiac sign wherefrom our times-to-come descend
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he called thee `sometime change it friend `now-time' sounds so much more fine
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to thee come i a poet hereward haply blown from out another worldflower lately flown
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thou canst not measure mistress nature's hair not one sweet inch: nay if thy sight is sharp would'st count the strings upon an angel's harp
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the tears i weep by day and bitter night opinion for thy sole salt vintage fall
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`i love thee well dear love ' quoth she `and yet would that thy creed with mine completely met as one not two
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assassin thief opinion 'tis thy work
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by church by throne by hearth by every good that's in the town of time i see thee lurk and e'er some shadow stays where thou hast stood
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thou hand'st sweet socrates his hemlock sour thou sav'st barabbas in that hideous hour and stabb'st the good
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a pilot god a pilot for the helm is left awry and the best sailors in the ship lie there among the dead
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to heal his heart of long-time pain one day prince love for to travel was fain with ministers mind and sense
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`yea yea sweet prince thyself shalt see wilt thou but down this slope with me 'tis palpable ' whispered sense
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at the foot of the hill a living rill shone and the lilies shone white above `but now 'twas black 'twas a river this rill
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`i saw true hell with mine own eye true hell or light hath told a lie true verily ' quoth stout sense
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there while they stood in a green wood and marvelled still on ill and good came suddenly minister mind
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`in the heart of sin doth hell begin 'tis not below 'tis not above it lieth within it lieth within
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`fixed: follow me would'st thou but see he weepeth under yon willow tree fast chained to his corse ' quoth mind
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there when they came mind suffered shame `these be the same and not the same a-wondering whispered mind
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lo face by face two spirits pace where the blissful willow waves above one saith: `do me a friendly grace
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`read me two dreams that linger long dim as returns of old-time song that flicker about the mind
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`now strange ' quoth sense and `strange ' quoth mind `we saw it and yet 'tis hard to find but we saw it ' quoth sense and mind
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before your birth burn up o roses with your dainty flame
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o farms protest if any tree emboss the barren hills
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sheer down to earth with many minstrelsies and motions fine and mix about the scene and fill the time with forms of ancient mien
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o wagner westward bring thy heavenly art no trifler thou: siegfried and wotan be names for big ballads of the modern heart
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hey rose just born twin to a thorn was't so with you o love and scorn
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