Hast thou so rare a poison? let me be
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STAGIRIUS._[3] Thou, who dost dwell alone;Thou, who dost know thine own;Thou, to whom all are knownFrom the cradle to the grave,--Save, oh! save.From the world’s temptations,From tribulations,From that fierce anguishWherein we languish,From that torpor deepWherein we lie asleep,Heavy as death, cold as the grave,Save, oh! save. When the soul, growing clearer,Sees God no nearer;When the soul, mounting higher,To God comes no nigher;But the arch-fiend PrideMounts at her side,Foiling her high emprise,Sealing her eagle eyes,And, when she fain would soar,Makes idols to adore,Changing the pure emotionOf her high devotion,To a skin-deep senseOf her own eloquence;Strong to deceive, strong to enslave,--Save, oh! save. From the ingrained fashionOf this earthly natureThat mars thy creature;From grief that is but passion,From mirth that is but feigning,From tears that bring no healing,From wild and weak complaining,Thine old strength revealing,Save, oh! save.From doubt, where all is double;Where wise men are not strong,Where comfort turns to trouble,Where just men suffer wrong;Where sorrow treads on joy,Where sweet things soonest cloy,Where faiths are built on dust,Where love is half mistrust,Hungry, and barren, and sharp as the sea,--Oh! set us free.Oh, let the false dream fly,Where our sick souls do lieTossing continually!Oh, where thy voice doth come,Let all doubts be dumb,Let all words be mild,All strifes be reconciled,All pains beguiled!Light bring no blindness,Love no unkindness,Knowledge no ruin,Fear no undoing!From the cradle to the grave,Save, oh! save. _HUMAN LIFE._ What mortal, when he saw,Life’s voyage done, his heavenly Friend,Could ever yet dare tell him fearlessly,--“I have kept uninfringed my nature’s law;The inly-written chart thou gavest me,To guide me, I have steered by to the end”? Ah! let us make no claim,On life’s incognizable sea,To too exact a steering of our way;Let us not fret and fear to miss our aim,If some fair coast has lured us to make stay,Or some friend hailed us to keep company. Ay! we would each fain driveAt random, and not steer by rule.Weakness! and worse, weakness bestowed in vain!Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive;We rush by coasts where we had lief remain:Man cannot, though he would, live chance’s fool. No! as the foaming swathOf torn-up water, on the main,Falls heavily away with long-drawn roarOn either side the black deep-furrowed pathCut by an onward-laboring vessel’s prore,And never touches the ship-side again; Even so we leave behind,As, chartered by some unknown Powers,We stem across the sea of life by night,The joys which were not for our use designed,--The friends to whom we had no natural right,The homes that were not destined to be ours. _TO A GYPSY CHILD BY THE SEASHORE_;
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