On the Night of a Friend's Wedding
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f ever I am old, and all alone,I shall have killed one grief, at any rate;For then, thank God, I shall not have to waitMuch longer for the sheaves that I have sown.The devil only knows what I have done,But here I am, and here are six or eightGood friends, who most ingenuously prateAbout my songs to such and such a one. But everything is all askew to-night, --As if the time were come, or almost come,For their untenanted mirage of meTo lose itself and crumble out of sight,Like a tall ship that floats above the foamA little while, and then breaks utterly.
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