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POETRY







            With light upon him from his father's eyes!
          See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
          Some fragment from his dream of human life,
          Shaped by himself with newly-learn{e}d art
          A wedding or a festival,
          A mourning or a funeral;
          And this hath now his heart,
          And unto this he frames his song:
          Then will he fit his tongue
          To dialogues of business, love, or strife;
          But it will not be long
          Ere this be thrown aside,
          And with new joy and pride
          The little Actor cons another part;
          Filling from time to time his
               "humorous stage"
          With all the Persons, down to palsied
               Age,
          That Life brings with her in her
               equipage;
          As if his whole vocation
          Were endless imitation.

          Thou, whose exterior semblance doth
               belie
          Thy Soul's immensity;
          Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep
          Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,
          That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,
          Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,—
          Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!
          On whom those truths do rest,
          Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
          In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
          Thou, over whom thy Immortality


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