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Madeline

With other poems and parables: By Thomas Gordon Hake

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 L. 
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 LIV. 
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 LVII. 
LVII. ON BELIEF.
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 LX. 
 LXI. 
 LXII. 
 LXIII. 
 LXIV. 
 LXV. 


269

LVII. ON BELIEF.

O reasonable soul, thy range
Else checked by bounds of clay,
Who but desires his place to change
For some celestial way?
Say in what hopes, what fears to die;
What unction to receive:
Faith, poor must be thy ministry,
To think what men believe!
The classic regions sink below,
There heroes meet again
In lofty pride and converse slow;
A hell devoid of pain.
In paradise by genius scored
Upon the starry chart,
The intellect is still adored,
And art still worships art.

270

Between two worlds, the last but one,
Of hell and heaven the mean,
The leper's soul is kept alone
Till he for heaven is clean.
The grave forgot, that home of old
Nor front nor aft a door;
The velvet turf by ages roll'd;
The garden of the poor!

EPODE.

Mind not the ancients, they are dead at best,
Be it beneath us, midway, or above;
Mind not the moderns, such as are at rest;
But give the living races all the love.
Turn to the heathen with a softening care;
Call him to join the small and chosen sect;
His soul for more than common news prepare;
Mid lurid warnings name him thy elect.