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ALIEN WATERS.
71
Sometimes I danced, as in a dream, to music,
And kept quick time with many flying feet,
And some one praised me in the music's pauses,
And very young was life, and love was sweet.

How could I listen to the low voice calling,
"Come hither,—leave thy music and thy mirth?"
How could I stop to hear of far-off Heaven?
I lived, and loved, and was a child of earth.

Then came a hand and took away my treasures,
Dimmed my fine gold, cut my fair rose-tree down,
Changed my dance music into notes of wailing,
Quenched the bright day, and turned my green fields brown.

Till, walking lonely through the empty places
Where love and I no more kept holiday,
My sad eyes, growing wonted to the darkness,
Beheld a new light shining far away: