The Altar
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lone, remote, nor witting where I went,I found an altar builded in a dream --A fiery place, whereof there was a gleamSo swift, so searching, and so eloquentOf upward promise, that love's murmur, blentWith sorrow's warning, gave but a supremeUnending impulse to that human streamWhose flood was all for the flame's fury bent. Alas! I said, -- the world is in the wrong.But the same quenchless fever of unrestThat thrilled the foremost of that martyred throngThrilled me, and I awoke . . . and was the sameBewildered insect plunging for the flameThat burns, and must burn somehow for the best.
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