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Not like a dancing meteor, but in line
Of never-varying motion, to and fro:
It is no night-fire of the naked hills,
Thought I, some friendly covert must be near.
With this persuasion thitherward my steps
I turn, and reach at last the guiding light;
Joy to myself! but to the heart of her
Who there was standing on the open hill,

And, through Heaven's blessing, thus we gain the
bread

For which we pray; and for the wants provide
Of sickness, accident, and helpless age.
Companions have I many; many friends,
Dependants, comfortors-my wheel, my fire,
All day the house-clock ticking in mine ear,
The cackling hen, the tender chicken brood,

(The same kind matron whom your tongue hath And the wild birds that gather round my porch. praised,)

Alarm and dissappointment! The alarm

This honest sheep-dog's countenance I read:
With him can talk; nor blush to waste a word

Ceased, when she learn'd through what mishap I On creatures less intelligent and shrewd.

came,

And by what help had gain'd those distant fields.
Drawn from her cottage, on that open height,
Bearing a lantern in her hand she stood,

Or paced the ground, to guide her husband home,
By that unwearied signal, kenn'd afar;
An anxious duty! which the lofty site,
Traversed but by a few irregular paths,
Imposes, whensoe'er untoward chance
Detains him after his accustom'd hour

Till night lies black upon the ground. But come,
Come,' said the matron, ' to our poor abode;
Those dark rocks hide it!' Entering, I beheld
A blazing fire, beside a cleanly hearth

Sate down; and to her office, with leave ask'd,
The dame return'd. Or ere that glowing pile
Of mountain turf required the builder's hand
Its wasted splendour to repair, the door
Open'd, and she re-enter'd with glad looks,
Her helpmate following. Hospitable fare,
Frank conversation, made the evening's treat:
Need a bewilder'd traveller wish for more?
But more was given; I studied as we sate
By the bright fire, the good man's face; composed
Of features elegant; an open brow
Of undisturb'd humanity; a cheek
Suffused with something of a feminine hue;
Eyes beaming courtesy and mild regard;
But, in the quicker turns of the discourse,
Expression slowly varying, that evinced
A tardy apprehension. From a fount
Lost, thought I, in th' obscurities of time,
But honour'd once, these features and that mien
May have descended, though I see them here,
In such a man, so gentle and subdued,
Withal so graceful in his gentleness,
A race illustrious for heroic deeds,
Humbled, but not degraded, may expire.
This pleasing fancy (cherish'd and upheld
By sundry recollections of such fall
From high to low, ascent from low to high,
As books record, and e'en the careless mind
Cannot but notice among men and things)
Went with me to the place of my repose.
"Roused by the crowing cock at dawn of day,
I yet had risen too late to interchange

A morning salutation with my host,

Gone forth already to the far-off seat

And if the blustering wind that drives the clouds
Care not for me, he lingers round my door,
And makes me pastime when our tempers suit;
But, above all, my thoughts are my support.
The matron ended-nor could I forbear
To exclaim, "O happy! yielding to the law
Of these privations, richer in the main !

While thankless thousands are opprest and clogg'd
By ease and leisure, by the very wealth
And pride of opportunity made poor;
While tens of thousands falter in their path,
And sink, through utter want of cheering light;
For you the hours of labour do not flag:
For you each evening hath its shining star,
And every Sabbath day its golden sun." "

"Yes!" said the solitary with a smile
That seem'd to break from an expanding heart,
"The untutor'd bird may found, and so construct
And with such soft materials line her nest,
Fix'd in the centre of a prickly brake,
That the thorns wound her not: they only guard.
Powers not unjustly liken'd to those gifts
Of happy instinct which the woodland bird
Shares with her species, nature's grace sometimes
Upon the individual doth confer,

Among her higher creatures born and train'd
To use of reason. And, I own, that tired
Of th' ostentatious world-a swelling stage
With empty actions and vain passions stuff'd,
And from the private struggles of mankind
Hoping for less than I could wish to hope,
Far less than once I trusted and believed-
I loved to hear of those, who, not contending,
Nor summon'd to contend for virtue's prize,
Miss not the humbler good at which they aim;
Blest with a kindly faculty to blunt
The edge of adverse circumstance, and turn
Into their contraries the petty plagues
And hinderances with which they stand beset.
In early youth, among my native hills,
I knew a Scottish peasant who possess'd

A few small crofts of stone-encumber'd ground;
Masses of every shape and size, that lay
Scatter'd about under the mouldering walls
Of a rough precipice; and some, apart,

In quarters unobnoxious to such chance,

As if the moon had shower'd them down in spite;
But he repined not. Though the plough was scared

Of his day's work. Three dark mid-winter By these obstructions, 'round the shady stones

months

Pass,' said the matron, and I never see,

Save when the Sabbath brings its kind release,
My helpmate's face by light of day. He quits
His door in darkness, nor till dusk returns.

A fertilizing moisture,' said the swain,
'Gathers, and is preserved; and feeding dews
And damps, through all the droughty summer day,
From out their substance issuing maintain
Herbage that never fails: no grass springs up

So green, so fresh, so plentiful, as mine!'
But thinly sown these natures; rare, at least,
The mutual aptitude of seed and soil

That yields such kindly product. He, whose bed
Perhaps yon loose sods cover, the poor pensioner
Brought yesterday from our sequester'd dell
Here to lie down in lasting quiet-he,

If living now, could otherwise report

Of rustic loneliness; that gray-hair'd orphan-
So call him, for humanity to him

No parent was-feelingly could have told,
In life, in death, what solitude can breed
Of selfishness, and cruelty, and vice;
Or, if it breed not, hath not power to cure.
But your compliance, sir, with our request
My words too long have hinder'd."

Undeterr'd,

Perhaps incited rather, by these shocks,
In no ungracious opposition, given
To the confiding spirit of his own
Experienced faith, the reverend pastor said,
Around him looking, "Where shall I begin?
Who shall be first selected from my flock,
Gather'd together in their peaceful fold?”
He paused, and having lifted up his eyes
To the pure heaven, he cast them down again
Upon the earth beneath his feet; and spake.
"To a mysteriously-consorted pair
This place is consecrate; to death and life,
And to the best affections that proceed
From their conjunction ;-consecrate to faith
In him who bled for man upon the cross;
Hallow'd to revelation; and no less
To reason's mandates: and the hopes divine
Of pure imagination ;-above all,
To charity, and love, that have provided
Within these precincts, a capacious bed
And receptacle, open to the good
And evil, to the just and the unjust;
In which they find an equal resting-place:
E'en as the multitude of kindred brooks

And streams, whose murmur fills this hollow vale,
Whether their course be turbulent or smooth,
Their waters clear or sullied, all are lost

Within the bosom of yon crystal lake,

And end their journey in the same repose!

Tyrants who utter the destroying word,
And slaves who will consent to be destroy'd—
Were of one species with the shelter'd few,
Who, with a dutiful and tender hand,
Did lodge, in an appropriated spot,

This file of infants; some that never breathed
The vital air; and others, who, allow'd
That privilege, did yet expire too soon,
Or with too brief a warning, to admit
Administration of the holy rite

That lovingly consigns the babe to th' arms
Of Jesus, and his everlasting care.
These that in trembling hope are laid apart;
And the besprinkled nursling, unrequired
Till he begins to smile upon the breast
That feeds him; and the tottering little one
Taken from air and sunshine when the rose
Of infancy first blooms upon his cheek;
The thinking, thoughtless schoolboy: the bold
youth

Of soul impetuous, and the bashful maid
Smitten while all the promises of life

Are opening round her: those of middle age,
Cast down while confident in strength they stand,
Like pillars fix'd more firmly, as might seem,
And more secure, by very weight of all
That, for support, rests on them; the decay'd
And burdensome: and lastly, that poor few
Whose light of reason is with age extinct;
The hopeful and the hopeless, first and last,
The earliest summon'd and the longest spared-
Are here deposited, with tribute paid
Various, but unto each some tribute paid;
As if, amid these peaceful hills and groves,
Society were touch'd with kind concern:

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And gentle Nature grieved, that one should die;
Or, if the change demanded no regret,

Observed the liberating stroke-and bless'd.
And whence that tribute? wherefore these regards?
Not from the naked heart alone of man,
(Though claiming high distinction upon earth
As the sole spring and fountain-head of tears,
His own peculiar utterance for distress
Or gladness.) No," the philosophic priest
Continued," 'tis not in the vital seat
Of feeling to produce them, without aid

"And blest are they who sleep; and we that From the pure soul, the soul sublime and pure; know,

While in a spot like this we breathe and walk,
That all beneath us by the wings are cover'd
Of motherly humanity, outspread
And gathering all within their tender shade,
Though loath and slow to come! A battle field,
In stillness left when slaughter is no more,
With this compared, is a strange spectacle!
A rueful sight the wild shore strewn with wrecks,
And trod by people in afflicted quest
Of friends and kindred, whom the angry sea
Restores not to their prayer! Ah! who would
think

That all the scatter'd subjects which compose
Earth's melancholy vision through the space

Of all her climes; these wretched, these depraved,
To virtue lost, insensible of peace,
From the delights of charity cut off,

To pity dead, th' oppressor and th' opprest;

With her two faculties of eye and car,

The one by which a creature, whom his sins
Have render'd prone, can upward look to heaven;
The other that empowers him to perceive
The voice of deity, on height and plain,
Whispering those truths in stillness, which the
WORD,

To the four quarters of the winds, proclaims.
Not without such assistance could the use
Of these benign observances prevail.
Thus are they born, thus foster'd and maintain'd;
And by the care prospective of our wise
Forefathers, who, to guard against the shocks,
The fluctuation and decay of things,
Imbodied and establish'd these high truths
In solemn institutions; men convinced
That life is love and immortality,
The being one, and one the element.
There lies the channel, and original bed,

From the beginning, hollow'd out and scoop'd
For man's affections; else betray'd and lost,
And swallow'd up 'mid deserts infinite!
This is the genuine course, the aim, and end
Of prescient reason; all conclusions else
Are abject, vain, presumptuous, and perverse,
The faith partaking of those holy times.
Life, I repeat, is energy of love
Divine or human; exercised in pain,
In strife, and tribulation; and ordain'd,
If so approved and sanctified, to pass,
Through shades and silent rest, to endless joy."

BOOK VI.

THE CHURCHYARD AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.

ARGUMENT.

Poet's address to the state and church of England. The
pastor not inferior to the ancient worthies of the church.
He begins his narratives with an instance of unrequited
love. Anguish of mind subdued, and how. The lonely
miner, an instance of perseverance, which leads by
contrast to an example of abused talents, irresolution,
and weakness. Solitary, applying this covertly to his
own case, asks for an instance of some stranger, whose |
dispositions may have led him to end his days here.
Pastor, in answer, gives an account of the harmonizing
influence of solitude upon two men of opposite princi-
ples, who had encountered agitations in public life.
The rule by which peace may be obtained expressed,
and where. Solitary hints at an overpowering fatality.
Answer of the pastor. What subjects he will exclude
from his narratives. Conversation upon this. Instance
of an unamiable character, a female, and why given.
Contrasted with this, a meek sufferer, from unguarded
and betrayed love. Instance of heavier guilt, and its

consequences to the offender. With this instance of a
marriage contract broken is contrasted one of a wi-
dower, evidencing his faithful affection towards his
deceased wife by his care of their female children.
HAIL to the crown by freedom shaped, to gird
An English sovereign's brow! and to the throne
Whereon he sits! Whose deep foundations lie
In veneration and the people's love;
Whose steps are equity, whose seat is law.
Hail to the state of England! And conjoin
With this a salutation as devout,
Made to the spiritual fabric of her church:
Founded in truth; by blood of martyrdom
Cemented; by the hands of wisdom rear'd
In beauty of holiness, with order'd pomp,
Decent, and unreproved. The voice, that greets
The majesty of both, shall pray for both;
That, mutually protected and sustain'd,
They may endure long as the sea surrounds
This favour'd land, or sunshine warms her soil.
And O, ye swelling hills, and spacious plains!
Besprent from shore to shore with steeple-towers,
And spires whose "silent finger points to heaven;"
Nor wanting, at wide intervals, the bulk
Of ancient minster, lifted above the cloud
Of the dense air, which town or city breeds
To intercept the sun's glad beams,-may ne'er
That true succession fail of English hearts,
Who, with ancestral feeling can perceive
What in those holy structures ye possess
Of ornamental interest and the charm

Of pious sentiment diffused afar,
And human charity, and social love.
Thus never shall th' indignities of time
Approach their reverend graces, unopposed;
Nor shall the elements be free to hurt
Their fair proportions; nor the blinder rage
Of bigot zeal madly to overturn ;
And, if the desolating hand of war
Spare them, they shall continue to bestow-
Upon the throng'd abodes of busy men
(Depraved, and ever prone to fill their minds
Exclusively with transitory things)
An air and mien of dignified pursuit ;
Of sweet civility-on rustic wilds.
The poet, fostering for his native land
Such hope, entreats that servants may abound
Of those pure altars worthy; ministers
Detach'd from pleasure, to the love of gain
Superior, insusceptible of pride,
And by ambitious longings undisturb'd;
Men, whose delight is where their duty leads
Or fixes them; whose least distinguish'd day
Shines with some portion of that heavenly lustre
Which makes the Sabbath lovely in the sight
Of blessed angels, pitying human cares.
And, as on earth it is the doom of truth
To be perpetually attack'd by foes
Open or covert, be that priesthood still,
For her defence, replenish'd with a band
Of strenuous champions, in scholastic arts
Thoroughly disciplined; nor (if in course
Of the revolving world's disturbances
Cause should recur, which righteous heaven avert!
To meet such trial) from their spiritual sire.
Degenerate; who, constrain'd to wield the sword
Of disputation, shrunk not, though assail'd
With hostile din, and combating in sight
Of angry umpires, partial and unjust;
And did, thereafter, bathe their hands in fire,
So to declare the conscience satisfied:
Nor for their bodies would accept release;
But, blessing God and praising him, bequeathed
With their last breath, from out the smouldering
flame,

The faith which they by diligence had earn'd,
Or, through illuminating grace, received,
For their dear countrymen, and all mankind.
O high example, constancy divine!

E'en such a man (inheriting the zeal
And from the sanctity of elder times
Not deviating, a priest, the like of whom,
If multiplied, and in their stations set,
Would o'er the bosom of a joyful land
Spread true religion, and her genuine fruits)
Before me stood that day; on holy ground
Fraught with the relics of mortality,
Exalting tender themes, by just degrees
To lofty raised; and to the highest, last;
The head and mighty paramount of truths;
Immortal life, in never-fading worlds,
For mortal creatures, conquer'd and secured.
That basis laid, those principles of faith
Announced, as a preparatory act
Of reverence to the spirit of the place;
The pastor cast his eyes upon the ground,
Not, as before, like one oppress'd with awe,

But with a mild and social cheerfulness,
Then to the solitary turn'd, and spake.

"At morn or eve, in your retired domain,
Perchance you not unfrequently have mark'd
A visiter-in quest of herbs and flowers;
Too delicate employ, as would appear

For one, who, though of drooping mien, had yet
From nature's kindliness received a frame
Robust as ever rural labour bred."

The solitary answer'd: "Such a form
Full well I recollect. We often cross'd
Each other's path; but, as th' intruder seem'd
Fondly to prize the silence which he kept,
And I as willingly did cherish mine,

We met, and pass'd, like shadows. I have heard,
From my good host that he was crazed in brain
By unrequited love; and scaled the rocks,
Dived into caves, and pierced the matted woods
In hope to find some virtuous herb of power
To cure his malady!"

The vicar smiled,
"Alas! before to-morrow's sun goes down
His habitation will be here: for him
That open grave is destined."

"Died he then

Of pain and grief?" the solitary ask'd,
"Believe it not-oh! never could that be !"

"He loved," the vicar answer'd, "deeply loved,
Loved fondly, truly, fervently; and dared
At length to tell his love, but sued in vain;
Rejected-yea repell'd-and, if with scorn
Upon the haughty maiden's brow, 'tis but

A high-prized plume which female beauty wears
In wantonness of conquest, or puts on
To cheat the world, or from herself to hide
Humiliation, when no longer free.

That he could brook, and glory in ;-but when
The tidings came that she whom he had woo'd
Was wedded to another, and his heart
Was forced to rend away its only hope,
Then, pity could have scarcely found on earth
An object worthier of regard than he,
In the transition of that bitter hour!
Lost was she, lost; nor could the sufferer say
That in the act of preference he had been
Unjustly dealt with; but the maid was gone!
Had vanish'd from his prospects and desires;
Not by translation to the heavenly choir
Who have put off their mortal spoils-ah no!
She lives another's wishes to complete,-
Joy be their lot, and happiness,' he cried,
'His lot and hers as misery is mine!'

"Such was that strong concussion; but the man,
Who trembled, trunk and limbs, like some huge oak
By a fierce tempest shaken, soon resumed
The steadfast quiet natural to a mind
Of composition gentle and sedate,
And in its movements circumspect and slow.
To books, and to the long forsaken desk,
O'er which enchain'd by science he had loved
To bend, he stoutly readdress'd himself,
Resolved to quell his pain, and search for truth
With keener appetite (if that might be)
And closer industry. Of what ensued
Within the heart no outward sign appear'd
Till a betraying sickliness was seen

To tinge his cheek; and through his frame it crept
With slow mutation unconcealable;
Such universal change as autumn makes
In the fair body of a leafy grove
Discolour'd, then divested. "Tis affirm'd
By poets skill'd in nature's secret ways
That love will not submit to be controll'd

By mastery and the good man lack'd not friends
Who strove t'instil this truth into his mind,

A mind in all heart mysteries unversed.

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Go to the hills,' said one, remit a while This baneful diligence: at early morn

Court the fresh air, explore the heaths and woods; And, leaving it to others to foretell,

By calculations sage, the ebb and flow

Of tides, and when the moon will be eclipsed,
Do you, for your own benefit, construct

A calendar of flowers, pluck'd as they blow
Where health abides, and cheerfulness, and peace.'
The attempt was made; 'tis needless to report
How hopelessly: but innocence is strong,
An an entire simplicity of mind,

A thing most sacred in the eye of heaven,
That opens, for such sufferers, relief
Within their souls, a fount of grace divine;
And doth commend their weakness and disease
To nature's care, assisted in her office
By all the elements that round her wait
To generate, to preserve, and to restore;
And by her beautiful array of forms
Shedding sweet influence from above, or pure
Delight exhaling from the ground they tread."
"Impute it not to impatience, if,” exclaim'd
The wanderer, "I infer that he was heal'd
By perseverance in the course prescribed."
"You do not err: the powers, that had been lost
By slow degrees, were gradually regain'd;
The fluttering nerves composed; the beating heart
In rest establish'd; and the jarring thoughts
To harmony restored. But yon dark mould
Will cover him, in the fulness of his strength-
Hastily smitten, by a fever's force;
Yet not with stroke so sudden as refused
Time to look back with tenderness on her
Whom he had loved in passion,-and to send
Some farewell words-with one, but one, request,
That, from his dying hand, she would accept
Of his possessions that which most he prized;
A book, upon whose leaves some chosen plants
By his own hand disposed with nicest care,
In undecaying beauty were preserved;
Mute register, to him, of time and place,
And various fluctuations in the breast;
To her, a monument of faithful love
Conquer'd, and in tranquillity retain'd!

"Close to his destined habitation, lies
One who achieved a humbler victory,
Though marvellous in its kind. A place there is
High in these mountains, that allured a band
Of keen adventurers to unite their pains
In search of precious ore: who tried, were foil'd—
And all desisted, all, save him alone.
He, taking counsel of his own clear thoughts,
And trusting only to his own weak hands,
Urged unremittingly the stubborn work,
Unseconded, uncountenanced; then, as time

Pass'd on, while still his lonely efforts found
No recompense, derided; and at length,
By many pitied; as insane of mind;
By others dreaded as the luckless thrall
Of subterranean spirits feeding hope
By various mockery of sight and sound;
Hope after hope, encouraged and destroy'd.
But when the lord of seasons had matured
The fruits of earth through space of twice ten years
The mountain's entrails offer'd to his view
And trembling grasp the long deterr'd reward.
Not with more transport did Columbus greet
A world, his rich discovery! but our swain,
A very hero till his point was gain'd,
Proved all unable to support the weight
Of prosperous fortune. On the fields he look'd
With an unsettled liberty of thought,

Of schemes and wishes; in the daylight walk'd
Giddy and restless; ever and anon
Quaff'd in his gratitude immoderate cups
And truly might be said to die of joy!
He vanish'd; but conspicuous to this day
The path remains that link'd his cottage door
To the mine's mouth; a long, and slanting track,
Upon the rugged mountain's stony side,
Worn by his daily visits to and from
The darksome centre of a constant hope.
This vestige, neither force of beating rain,
Nor the vicissitudes of frost and thaw
Shall cause to fade, till ages pass away;
And it is named, in memory of the event,
The Path of Perseverance."

"Thou from whom Man has his strength," exclaim'd the wanderer, "O!

Do Thou direct it!-to the virtuous grant
The penetrative eye which can perceive
In this blind world the guiding vein of hope,
That like this labourer, such may dig their way
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified;'

Grant to the wise his firmness of resolve !"

Into the lists of giddy enterprise-
Such was he; yet, as if within his frame
Two several souls alternately had lodged,
Two sets of manners could the youth put on ;
And, fraught with antics as the Indian bird
That writhes and chatters in her wiry cage;
Was graceful, when it pleased him, smooth and still
As the mute swan that floats adown the stream,
Or, on the waters of the unruffled lake,
Anchors her placid beauty. Not a leaf,
That flutters on the bough, more light than He;
And not a flower, that droops in the green shade,
More winningly reserved! If ye inquire
How such consummate elegance was bred
Amid these wilds, this answer may suffice,
'Twas nature's will; who sometimes undertakes,
For the reproof of human vanity,

Art to outstrip in her peculiar walk.
Hence, for this favourite, lavishly endow'd
With personal gifts, and bright instinctive wit,
While both, embellishing each other, stood
Yet farther recommended by the charm
Of fine demeanour, and by dance and song,
And skill in letters, every fancy shaped
Fair expectations; nor, when to the world's
Capacious field forth went the adventurer there
Were he and his attainments overlook'd,
Or scantily rewarded; but all hopes,
Cherish'd for him, he suffer'd to depart,

Like blighted buds; or clouds that mimick'd land
Before the sailor's eye; or diamond drops
That sparkling deck'd the morning grass; or augh
That was attractive-and hath ceased to be!
Yet when this prodigal return'd, the rites
Of joyful greeting were on him bestow'd,
Who, by humiliation undeterr'd,

Sought for his weariness a place of rest

Within his father's gates. Whence came he?clothed

In tatter'd garb, from hovels where abides
Necessity, the stationary host

"That prayer were not superfluous," said the Of vagrant poverty; from rifted barns

priest,

"Amid the noblest relics, proudest dust,
That Westminster, for Britain's glory, holds
Within the bosom of her awful pile,
Ambitiously collected. Yet the sigh,

Which wafts that prayer to heaven, is due to all,
Wherever laid, who living fell below
Their virtue's humbler mark; a sigh of pain
If to the opposite extreme they sank.
How would you pity her who yonder rests;
Him, farther off; the pair, who here are laid;
But, above all, that mixture of earth's mould
Whom sight of this green hillock to my mind
Recalls! He lived not till his locks were nipp'd
By seasonable frost of age; nor died
Before his temples, prematurely forced
To mix the manly brown with silver gray,
Gave obvious instance of the sad effect
Produced, when thoughtless folly hath usurp'd
The natural crown that sage experience wears.
Gay, volatile, ingenious, quick to learn,
And prompt to exhibit all that he possess'd
Or could perform! a zealous actor-hired
Into the troop of mirth, a soldier-sworn

Where no one dwells but the wide staring owl And the owl's prey; from these bare haunts, to which

He had descended from the proud saloon,
He came, the ghost of beauty and of health,
The wreck of gayety! but soon revived
In strength, in power refitted, he renew'd
His suit to fortune; and she smiled again
Upon a fickle ingrate. Thrice he rose,
Thrice sank as willingly. For he, whose nerves
Were used to thrill with pleasure, while his voice
Softly accompanied the tuneful harp,

By the nice finger of fair ladies, touch'd
In glittering halls, was able to derive
No less enjoyment from an abject choice.
Who happier for the moment-who more blithe
Than this fall'n spirit? in those dreary holds
His talents lending to exalt the freaks
Of merry-making beggars,-now, provoked
To laughter multiplied in louder peals
By his malicious wit; then, all enchain'd
With mute astonishment, themselves to see
In their own arts outdone, their fame eclipsed,
As by the very presence of the fiend

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