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Silentium

Be silent, hidden, and conceal
Whateer you dream, whateer you feel.
Oh, let your visions rise and die
Within your hearts unfathomed sky,
Like stars that take nights darkened route.
Admire and scan them and be mute.

The heart was born dumb; who can sense
Its tremors, recondite and tense?
And who can hear its silent cry?
A thought when spoken is a lie....
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For all, I thank Thee, I, the meek remitter:
For passions secret torments without end,
The kiss of venom, and the tears too bitter,
The vengeful enemy, the slanderous friend,
The spirits ardor on the desert squandered,
For every lash of lifes deceiving thong;
I thank Thee for the wastes where I have wandered:
But heed Thou, that I need not thank Thee long.

-Gratitude...
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Soft the dove-hued shadows mingle,
Color fades, sound droops to sleep.
Life and motion melt to darkness
Swaying murmurs far and deep.
But the night moths languid flitting
Stirs the air invisibly:
Oh, the hour of wordless longing;
I in all, and all in me.

Twilighttranquil, brooding twilight,
Course through me, serene and smooth;
Quiet, languid, fragrant twilight,
Flood all depths, all sorrows soothe,
Every...
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Verses Written During a Sleepless Night

Sleep I cannot find, nor light:
Everywhere is dark and slumber,
Only weary tickings number
The slow hours of the night.
Parca, jabbering, woman-fashion,
Sleeping night, without compassion,
Life, who stirs like rustling mice,
Why encage me in thy vise?
Why the whispering insistence,
Art thou but the pale persistence
Of a day departed twice?
What black failures dost...
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I stand in the cold gray weather,
In the white and silvery rain;
The great trees huddle together,
And sway with the windy strain.
I dream of the purple glory
Of the roseate mountain-height
And the sweet-to-remember story
Of a distant and clear delight.

The rain keeps constantly raining,
And the sky is cold and gray,
And the wind in the trees keeps complaining
That...
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Love and Sleep

Lying asleep between the strokes of night
I saw my love lean over my sad bed,
Pale as the duskiest lily's leaf or head,
Smooth-skinned and dark, with bare throat made to bite,
Too wan for blushing and too warm for white,
But perfect-coloured without white or red.
And her lips opened amorously, and said--
I wist not what, saving one word--Delight....
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Across the fields of yesterday
He sometimes comes to me,
A little lad just back from play
The lad I used to be.

And yet he smiles so wistfully
Once he has crept within,
I wonder if he hopes to see
The man I might have been.

-Sometimes by Thomas S. Jones, Jr

Asleep! O sleep a little while, white pearl!
And let me kneel, and let me pray to thee,
And let me call Heavens blessing on thine eyes,
And let me breathe into the happy air,
That doth enfold and touch thee all about,
Vows of my slavery, my giving up,
My sudden adoration, my great love!

-John Keats

When my grave is broke up againe
Some second ghest to entertaine,
(For graves have learn'd that woman-head
To be to more then one a Bed)
And he that digs it, spies
A bracelet of bright haire about the bone,
Will he not let'us alone,
And thinke that there a loving couple lies,
Who thought that this device might be some way
To make their...
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