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194
POEMS AND SONGS
My songs were christened
In light that fell from his whiteness holy.
— How great it is! I can finish never.
Great thoughts that in life and legend we treasure
Stream towards the scene in persistent endeavor,
The mighty impression to grasp and measure, —
Dante’s hell, India’s myth-panorama,
Shakespeare’s earth-overarching drama,
Aeschylus’ thunders that purge and free,
Beethoven’s powerful symphony,—
They widen and heighten, they cloud and brighten:
— Like small ants scrambling and soft-cooing doves,
They tumble backward and flee affrighted ;—
As if a dandy in dress-coat and gloves
The mountains approached and to dance invited.
No, tempt them not! Their retainer be!
You ’ll learn then later,
How life with the great must make you greater.
If you are humble, they ’ll say it themselves,
That something is greater than e’en their greatest.
Look how the little river that delves
High in the notch within limits straitest,
Through ice first burrowed and stone, a brook,
Slowly the giants asunder wearing!
Unmoved before, their face now and bearing
They had to change ’mid the spring-flood’s laughter;
Millions of years have followed thereafter,
Millions of years it also took.
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