Haydon! forgive me that I cannot speak Definitively of these mighty things; Forgive me, that I have not eagle's wings, That what I want I know not where to seek, And think that I would not be over-meek, In rolling out upfollowed thunderings, Even to the steep of Heliconian springs, Were I of ample strength for such a freak. Think, too, that all these numbers should be thine; Whose else? In this who touch thy vesture's hem? For, when men stared at what was most divine With brainless idiotism and o'erwise ...

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Hearken, thou craggy ocean-pyramid, Give answer by thy voice—the sea-fowls' screams! When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams? When from the sun was thy broad forehead hid? How long is't since the mighty Power bid Thee heave to airy sleep from fathom dreams— Sleep in the lap of thunder or sunbeams— Or when grey clouds are thy cold coverlid! Thou answer'st not; for thou art dead asleep. Thy life is but two dead eternities, The last in air, the former in the deep! First with the whales, last with the ...

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Standing aloof in giant ignorance, Of thee I hear and of the Cyclades, As one who sits ashore and longs perchance To visit dolphin-coral in deep seas. So thou wast blind;--but then the veil was rent, For Jove uncurtain'd Heaven to let thee live, And Neptune made for thee a spumy tent, And Pan made sing for thee his forest-hive; Aye on the shores of darkness there is light, And precipices show untrodden green, There is a budding morrow in midnight, There is a triple sight in blindness keen; Such seeing hadst ...

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