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Poems by Frederick Goddard Tuckerman

Tuckerman, Frederick Goddard (1821-1873)

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PART I.
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PART II.
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Sonnets.
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PART 1.
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[I. Sometimes, when winding slow by brook and bower]
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[II. Wherefore, with this belief, held like a blade]
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[III. And borne with theirs, my proudest thoughts do seem]
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[IV. Nor looks that backward life so bare to me]
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[V. And so the day drops by; the horizon draws]
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[VI. Not sometimes, but, to him that heeds the whole]
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[VII. Dank fens of cedar; hemlock-branches gray]
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[VIII. As when, down some broad River dropping, we]
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[IX. Yet wear we on; the deep light disallowed]
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[X. An upper chamber in a darkened house]
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[XI. What profits it to me, though here allowed]
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[XII. Tall, stately plants, with spikes and forks of gold]
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[XIII. As one who walks and weeps by alien brine]
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[XIV. Not proud of station; nor in worldly pelf]
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[XV. And she, her beauty never made her cold]
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[XVI. Yet Nature, where the thunder leaves its trace]
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[XVII. All men,—the Preacher saith,—whate'er or whence]
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[XVIII. Perchance his own small field some charge demands]
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[XIX. Yet vain, perhaps, the fruits our care applaud]
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[XX. Still craves the spirit: never Nature solves]
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[XXI. O Father, God! to whom, in happier days]
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[XXII. The morning comes; not slow, with reddening gold]
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[XXIII. Shall I not see her? Yes; for one has seen]
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[XXIV. Perhaps a dream; yet surely truth has beamed]
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[XXV. By this low fire I often sit to woo]
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[XXVI. For Nature daily through her grand design]
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[XXVII. So, to the mind long brooding but on it]
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[XXVIII. Not the round natural world, not the deep mind]
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PART II.

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178

[VIII. As when, down some broad River dropping, we]

As when, down some broad River dropping, we,
Day after day, behold the assuming shores
Sink and grow dim, as the great Water-course
Pushes his banks apart and seeks the sea;
Benches of pines, high shelf and balcony,
To flats of willow and low sycamores
Subsiding, till, where'er the wave we see,
Himself is his horizon utterly:
So fades the portion of our early world.
Still on the ambit hangs the purple air;
Yet, while we lean to read the secret there,
The stream that by green shore-sides splashed and purled
Expands; the mountains melt to vapors rare,
And life alone circles out flat and bare.
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