ODE TO GOD 239
Where, with the warmth of life's first youth, Old friends may yet shake hands once more ?
None ? Then farewell ! Yet let my speech
Seem not presumptuous nor profane ; Nor deem that selfishness can teach
My heart to wish thee back again.
Yet, as the sailor's faithful hand
Drags a few stones, with tears besprent,
And builds, upon some barren strand, To friendship a rude monument :
So I, who mourned thy loss full long. Lone wandering where the sea of time
Sweeps drearier shores, now build in song This humble monument of rhyme.
��ODE TO GOD,
AS HE APPEARS TO THE CHILD, AS HE RECEDES FROM THE
YOUTH, AND AS HE RETURNS TO THE MAN.
Where shall I look for thee, since now no more
I see thee in man's likeness. Great Unknown ? Each day I'm floating farther from the shore Of my fair land of dreams ; life's Spring is o'er, And thou art gone.
Ah, once from the blue waves how glowing bright
Thy face uprose in yon fair orb of day ! And on the hill-top, with approaching night, I saw thy parting smile in reddening light Melt slow away.
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