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Avolio ; a legend of the island of Cos

With poems, lyrical, miscellaneous, and dramatic

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IMMATURITY.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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77

IMMATURITY.

The fields are ripening to the harvest bloom,
The full grain reddens in the fiery morn,
When, lo!—a mighty whirlwind, sudden-born,
Blights the fair produce with untimely doom;—
Oft do the coral islands faintly loom
Above the South-sea waters, to sink back,
Crumbling to ruin in the earthquake's track,
And what had risen an Eden, rests—a tomb.
Thus, glorious natures, toiling through the years,
Just ready to yield up the glowing flowers
Of faith and genius, fall amid their peers,
And bear to Darkness those supernal powers,
Wrought slowly upward with elaborate care,
Swelling from depths obscure, to fill the loftiest Sphere.