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That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
Dear as remember'd kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.
Thus, although in a very cursory and imperfect manner, I have endeavored
to convey to you my conception of the Poetic Principle. It has been my
purpose to suggest that, while this principle itself is strictly and
simply the Human Aspiration for Supernal Beauty, the manifestation of
the Principle is always found in an elevating excitement of the soul,
quite independent of that passion which is the intoxication of the
Heart, or of that truth which is the satisfaction of the Reason. For
in regard to passion, alas! its tendency is to degrade rather than to
elevate the Soul. Love, on the contrary--Love--the true, the divine
Eros--the Uranian as distinguished from the Diona an Venus--is
unquestionably the purest and truest of all poetical themes. And in
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