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Vigil and vision

New Sonnets by John Payne

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12

NATURE'S SECRET.

I went in woodlands when the leaves were sere:
The watchet skies of Autumn, clear and cold,
Peeped through their panoplies of red and gold;
The wind went dirging to the dying year.
Yet in the wan waste ways a subtle cheer
There breathed; and as I sought to take and hold
The spell of peace that hallowed wood and wold,
“Content!” the robin carolled in mine ear.
Yea, all that is on earth's alike content
To die and in its like to live again,
Save man, that, after seventy years of pain
And strife, clings yet to personality
And wearies heaven with his vain lament
That others in his likeness live, not he.