 | The bird and the bell, with other poems
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I.
Life's rearward vistas slowly close behind,
And evermore recede, the glare and shade
Blending in neutral tints far down the glade
Where youth stepped unconfined,
Or bounded upwards, light and undismayed,
Or struggled through the underbrush and thorns,
Baffled and mad to hear the winding horns
So far away triumphant on the heights
Where some found truth, some error's foggy breath,
And some fame's evanescent lights,
Or desolate old age, or crown of early death.
| The bird and the bell, with other poems
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