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So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, which moves

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

THE SPHINX

The Sphinx is drowsy,
Her wings are furled;

Her ear is heavy,

She broods on the world. "Who'll tell me my secret,

The ages have kept?—

I awaited the seer,

While they slumbered and slept:

"The fate of the man-child

The meaning of man;
Known fruit of the unknown;

Daedalian plan;

Out of sleeping a waking,
Out of waking a sleep;
Life death overtaking;
Deep underneath deep?

"Erect as a sunbeam,
Upspringeth the palm;
The elephant browses,
Undaunted and calm;

In beautiful motion

The thrush plies his wings: Kind leaves of his covert Your silence he sings.

"The waves, unashamed,
In difference sweet,
Play glad with the breezes,
Old playfellows meet;
The journeying atoms,

Primordial wholes,

Firmly draw, firmly drive,
By their animate poles.

"Sea, earth, air, sound, silence. Plant, quadruped, bird, By one music enchanted,

One deity stirred,— Each the other adorning, Accompany still;

Night veileth the morning,
The vapour, the hill.

"The babe by its mother Lies bathed in joy;

Glide its hours uncounted

The sun is its toy;

Shines the peace of all being,
Without cloud, in its eyes;

And the sun of the world
In soft miniature lies.

"But man crouches and blushes
Absconds and conceals;

He creepeth and peepeth,
He palters and steals;
Infirm, melancholy,

Jealous glancing around,
An oaf, an accomplice,
He poisons the ground.

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'Out spoke the great mother, Beholding his fear;—

At the sound of her accents

Cold shuddered the sphere:'Who has drugged my boy's cup? Who has mixed my boy's bread? Who, with sadness and madness, Has turned my child's head?'

I heard a poet answer,

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Aloud and cheerfully,

Say on, sweet Sphinx! thy dirges

Are pleasant songs to me.

Deep love lieth under

These pictures of time; They fade in the light of

Their meaning sublime.

"The fiend that man harries
Is love of the Best;
Yawns the pit of the Dragon,
Lit by rays from the Blest.
The Lethe of nature

Can't trance him again,
Whose soul sees the perfect,
Which his eyes seek in vain.

"To vision profounder,

Man's spirit must dive;

His aye-rolling orbit

At no goal will arrive;

The heavens that now draw him

With sweetness untold,

Once found,-for new heavens

He spurneth the old.

"Pride ruined the angels,

Their shame them restores;

Lurks the joy that is sweetest
In stings of remorse.

Have I a lover

Who is noble and free?

I would he were nobler

Than to love me.

"Eterne alternation

Now follows, now flies;
And under pain, pleasure,—
Under pleasure, pain lies.
Love works at the centre,
Heart-heaving alway;
Forth speed the strong pulses
To the borders of day.

"Dull Sphinx, Jove keep thy five wits.

Thy sight is growing blear:

Rue, myrrh, and cummin for the SphinxHer muddy eyes to clear!"—

The old Sphinx bit her thick lip,

Said, "Who taught thee me to name?

I am thy spirit, yoke-fellow,

Of thine eye I am eyebeam.

'Thou art the unanswered question;

Couldst see thy proper eye;

Alway it asketh, asketh;

And each answer is a lie.

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