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SIN

Lord, with what care hast Thou begirt us round!
Parents first season us; then schoolmasters
Deliver us to laws; they send us bound
To rules of reason, holy messengers,

Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin,
Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes,
Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in,
Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,

Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness,
The sound of glory ringing in our ears;
Without, our shame; within, our consciences:
Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears:

Yet all these fences and their whole array
One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away.

George Herbert

RENOUNCEMENT

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
I shun the thought that lurks in all delight-

The thought of thee and in the blue Heaven's height, And in the sweetest passage of a song.

Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng

This breast, the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright; But it must never, never come in sight;

I must stop short of thee the whole day long.

But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,

Must doff my will as raiment laid away,

With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
I run, I rùn, I am gathered to thy heart.

Alice Meynell

THE TIGER

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burned the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand formed thy dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?

Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

William Blake

TO A WATERFOWL

Whither, midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,
The desert and illimitable air,

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,

At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart:

He who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone,

Will lead my steps aright.

William Cullen Bryant

THE VALLEY OF UNREST

Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly, from their azure towers,
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sunlight lazily lay.
Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valley's restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless,
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.

Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides!

Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
Uneasily, from morn to even,

Over the violets there that lie
In myriad types of the human eye,
Over the lilies there that wave

And weep above a nameless grave!

They wave: from out their fragrant tops
Eternal dews come down in drops

They weep:
Perennial tears descend in gems.

from off their delicate stems

Edgar Allan Poe

SEVEN TIMES ONE

There's no dew left on the daisies and clover,

There's no rain left in heaven.

I've said my "seven times"
Seven times one are seven.

over and over,

I am old,

so old I can write a letter;

My birthday lessons are done.

The lambs play always, — they know no better;
They are only one times one.

O Moon! in the night I have seen you sailing
And shining so round and low.

You were bright — ah, bright—but your light

is failing;

You are nothing now but a bow.

You Moon! have you done something wrong

in heaven,

That God has hidden your face?

I hope, if you have, you will soon be forgiven,
And shine again in your place.

O velvet Bee! you're a dusty fellow,
You've powdered your legs with gold.
O brave marsh Mary-buds, rich and yellow,
Give me your money to hold!

O Columbine! open your folded wrapper,
Where two twin turtle-doves dwell!
O Cuckoo-pint! toll me the purple clapper
That hangs in your clear green bell!

And show me your nest, with the young ones
in it,-

I will not steal them away:

I am old! you may trust me, linnet, linnet!
I am seven times one to-day.

Jean Ingelow

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