HERITAGE
18 lines✦
ow the dead past seems vividly alive,And in this shining moment I can trace,Down through the vista of the vanished years,Your faun-like form, your fond elusive face. And suddenly some secret spring’s released,And unawares a riddle is revealed, And I can read like large, black-lettered print,What seemed before a thing forever sealed. I know the magic word, the graceful thought,The song that fills me in my lucid hours,The spirit’s wine that thrills my body through,And makes me music-drunk, are yours, all yours. I cannot praise, for you have passed from praise,I have no tinted thoughts to paint you true;But I can feel and I can write the word;The best of me is but the least of you. 30
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