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ANNIVERSARY POEM.
189
VI.No festival like ours: yet while we meet, We might discern, had we clairvoyant powers, The silent ecstasies of mingling flowers;The electric currents in a kindling heat Of mutual joy; the sounding rush and jar Of reveling tides; mount greeting mount afar,Through roar of avalanches white and fleet;
VII.The soft attraction of June clouds, that shine, Yet hide the sun till day is tinged with dark; As cherub-wings, flung radiant o'er the ark,Shielded from mortal eyes its light divine; And the recurrent, glad concourse above Of burning stars that still approach and love,And lean from their curved orbit's golden line.
VIII.But we have nobler union: being made Sentient of God and Truth and our own souls; And while each delicate pulse within us rollsQuickened with friendly fervor, we are weighed In Heaven's just balance, and all things beside Found less than we,—flower, mount, electric tide,Cloud, star, and sun,—through each material grade.
