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Poems

By Edward Dowden

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TO A YEAR
  
  
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 VIII. 
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 XI. 
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66

TO A YEAR

Fly, Year, not backward down blind gulfs of night,
Thick with the swarm of miscreated things:
Forth, flying year, through calms and broader light,
Clear-eyed, strong-bosom'd year, on strenuous wings;
Bearing a song more high-intoned, more holy
Than the wild Swan's melodious melancholy,
More rapturous than the atom lark outflings.
I follow on slow foot and unsubdued:
Have I not heard thy cry across the wind?
Not seen thee, Slayer of the serpent brood,—
Error, and doubt, and death, and anguish blind?
I follow, I shall know thee by thy plumes
Flame-tipped, when on that morn of conquered tombs,
I praise amidst my years the doom assigned.