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Amid what friendly greetings and caresses,

What households, though not alien, yet not mine,

What bowers of rest divine;

To what temptations in lone wildernesses,

What famine of the heart, what pain and loss,

The bearing of what cross!

I do not know; nor will I vainly question

Those pages of the mystic book which hold

The story still untold,

But without rash conjecture or suggestion

Turn its last leaves in reverence and good heed,

Until "The End" I read.

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But, instead, she builds me bridges

Over many a dark ravine,

Where beneath the gusty ridges

Cataracts dash and roar unseen.

And I cross them, little heeding

Blast of wind or torrent's roar,

As I follow the receding

Footsteps that have gone before.

Naught avails the imploring gesture,

Naught avails the cry of pain!

When I touch the flying vesture,

'Tis the gray robe of the rain.

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Baffled I return, and, leaning

O'er the parapets of cloud,

Watch the mist that intervening

Wraps the valley in its shroud.

And the sounds of life ascending

Faintly, vaguely, meet the ear,

Murmur of bells and voices blending With the rush of waters near.

Well I know what there lies hidden,

Every tower and town and farm,

And again the land forbidden.

Reassumes its vanished charm.

Well I know the secret places,

And the nests in hedge and tree;

At what doors are friendly faces,

In what hearts are thoughts of me.

Through the mist and darkness sinking,

Blown by wind and beaten by shower,

Down I fling the thought I'm thinking,

Down I toss this Alpine flower.

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