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Sonnets

By Emily Pfeiffer: Revised and Enlarged Ed.

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 I. 
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 III. 
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I.

HAIL Goddess of the heaven-reflecting eyes,
Divine Athena! thou whose sweet breath blew
The message of the Gods the wide world through,
And showed us sovereign Reason in the guise
Of all-unearthly beauty; wake, arise
With fresh revealings; where the plant first grew
The fallen seed its life may still renew,
And yield young offshoots, strange to denser skies.
Fair sleeper! Long ago a lordly bard,
Errant from England, to thy wakening gave
A fiery kiss; and still thy forehead, starred,
Nay sunned, and burning with the hopes that save,
Lies low; great Goddess, hath the world debarred
Thee room to rise, and made thy bed thy grave?