< Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu
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RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Keep thee to-day, To-morrow, for ever, Free as an Arab Of thy beloved.

Cling with life to the maid ;

But when the surprise,

First vague shadow of surmise,

Flits across her bosom young,

Of a joy apart from thee,

Free be she, fancy-free ;

Nor thou detain her vesture's hem,

Nor the palest rose she flung

From her summer diadem.

Though thou loved her as thyself, As a self of purer clay ; Though her parting dims the day, Stealing grace from all alive ; Heartily know, When half-gods go The gods arrive.

670. Uriel

TT fell in the ancient periods

  • Which the brooding soul surveys,

Or ever the wild Time coin'd itself Into calendar months and days.

This was the lapse of Uriel, Which in Paradise befell. Once, among the Pleiads walking, Sayd overheard the young gods talking;

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