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Ah, it was he I heard at early dawn,
From the high hilltop and the dew-wet hollow,
While I was yet as tender as a fawn.
Calling me, "Follow!"

And it was he who spoke at sultry noon,...

The falling of a leaf upon thy way,
The flutter of a bird along thy sky,
Thou God, to whom the ages are a day,
Ev'n such, alas! oh, ev'n such am I!

So long the time, O Lord, when I was not....

A wild spring upland all this charmed page,
Where, in the early dawn, the maenads rage,
Mad, chaste, and lovely! This, a darker spot
Where lone Antigone bewails her lot....

Fades the great pyramid, the blank walls fade!
And thou, immortal boy, dost walk with me
Along that grove from out whose deeper shade
The nightingale sings living ecstasy.
...

Oh no, not this! This is a Roman face,
Superb, composed, with such a matron grace
As that of great Cornelia, never thee.
Young princess of an ancient poetry!

Nor do I wish thy beauty from its grave;...

Demeter? 'Tis a name! For in thy face
A myriad women find their mourning-place!
Thou, sitting lonely on the wayside stone,
O pagan mother, thou art not alone!
...

Light through a little veil is all thy trace
Of halo, blessed Child!
The sorrow of the world is in thy face,
fair, undefiled!
dear and undefiled!

The kneeling boy, with pretty lips apart,...

Lord of all strength, behold, I am but frail!
Lord of all harvest, few the grapes and pale
Allotted for my wine-press! Thou, Lord,
Who boldest in thy gift the tempered sword....

(News Item: "It remains true that two hundred English and American men were sacrificed for as many peasant women.")

Once more I read, writ out in blood and tears,
Across this midnight page of sea and sky,...