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Sonnets and canzonets

Alcott, Amos Bronson (1799-1888)

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PROEM.
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PART I.
 1. 
[I. Auspicious morn, com'st opportune, unbought?]
 2. 
[II. Ah! why so brief the visit, short his stay?]
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[III. Not all the brilliant beauties I have seen]
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[IV. The April rains are past, the frosts austere]
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[V. Most precious leaves the mail delights to bring]
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[VI. 'T is but a half-hour's walk the Mill-Dam o'er]
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[VII. The morning's clear, the sky without a frown]
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[VIII. Mean are all titles of nobility]
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[IX. Now I no longer wait my love to tell]
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[X. Unconquerable and inviolate]
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[XI. Ancestral tendencies far down descend]
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[XII. Hither, the gray and shapely church beside]
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[XIII. My Lady reads, with judgment and good taste]
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[XIV. Not Wordsworth's genius, Pestalozzi's love]
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[XV. Daughter, beloved of all, thy tender eye]
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[XVI. When I remember with what buoyant heart]
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[XVII. 'T was not permitted thee the Fates to please]
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XVIII. LOVE'S MORROW.
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[XIX. O Death! thou utterest deeper speech]
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[XX. Voyager across the seas]
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[XXI. Dear Heart! if aught to human love I've owed]
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[XXII. Calm vale of comfort, peace, and industry]
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PART II.
 1. 
[I. In Youth's glad morning, when the rising East]
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[II. My thought revives at utterance of thy name]
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[III. Christian beloved! devoid of art and wile]
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[IV. Channing! my Mentor whilst my thought was young]
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[V. Daughter of Memory! who her watch doth keep]
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[VI. Misfortune to have lived not knowing thee]
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[VII. Hierophant, and lyrist of the soul]
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[VIII. Pleased, I recall those hours, so fair and free]
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[IX. Dear Lady! oft I meditate on thee]
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[X. Thou, Sibyl rapt! whose sympathetic soul]
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[XI. Priest of the gladsome tidings, old and new]
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[XII. Interpreter of the Pure Reason's laws]
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[XIII. Who nearer Nature's life would truly come]
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[XIV. Much do they wrong our Henry, wise and kind]
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[XV. Whilst from the cloistered schools rushed forth in view]
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[XVI. Bright visions of my sprightlier youthful days]
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[XVII. Sweet saint! whose rising dawned upon the sight]
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[XVIII. Adventurous mariner! in whose gray skiff]
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[XIX. Romancer, far more coy than that coy sex]
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[XX. Still held in sweet remembrance thou, my friend]
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[XXI. Poet of the Pulpit, whose full-chorded lyre]
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[XXII. People's Attorney, servant of the Right]
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[XXIII. 'T was when the land was struggling to break free]
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[XXIV. Bold Saint, thou firm believer in the Cross]
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[XXV. Nobly censorious of our transient age]
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[XXVI. Freedom's first champion in our fettered land]
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[XXVII. O Thou, my country, ope thine eyes]

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103

[V. Daughter of Memory! who her watch doth keep]

Daughter of Memory! who her watch doth keep
O'er dark Oblivion's land of shade and dream,
Peers down into the realm of ancient Sleep,
Where Thought uprises with a sudden gleam
And lights the devious path 'twixt Be and Seem;
Mythologist! that dost thy legend steep
Plenteously with opiate and anodyne,
Inweaving fact with fable, line with line,
Entangling anecdote and episode,
Mindful of all that all men meant or said,—
We follow, pleased, thy labyrinthine road,
By Ariadne's skein and lesson led:
For thou hast wrought so excellently well,
Thou drop'st more casual truth than sages tell.
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