"ranged" poems
Before going to bed
After a fall of snow
I look out on the field
Shining there in the moonlight
So calm, untouched and white
Snow silence fills my head
After I leave the window.
Hours later near dawn
When I look down again
The whole landscape has changed
The perfect surface gone
Criss-crossed and written on
Where the wild creatures ranged
While the moon rose and shone.
Why did my dog not bark?
Why did I hear no sound
There on the snow-locked ground
In the tumultuous dark?
How much can come, how much can go
When the December moon is bright,
What worlds of play we'll never know
Sleeping away the cold white night
After a fall of snow.
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It was a hundred years ago,
When, by the woodland ways,
The traveller saw the wild deer drink,
Or crop the birchen sprays.
Beneath a hill, whose rocky side
O'erbrowed a grassy mead,
And fenced a cottage from the wind,
A deer was wont to feed.
She only came when on the cliffs
The evening moonlight lay,
And no man knew the secret haunts
In which she walked by day.
White were her feet, her forehead showed
A spot of silvery white,
That seemed to glimmer like a star
In autumn's hazy night.
And here, when sang the whippoorwill,
She cropped the sprouting leaves,
And here her rustling steps were heard
On still October eves.
But when the broad midsummer moon
Rose o'er that grassy lawn,
Beside the silver-footed deer
There grazed a spotted fawn.
The cottage dame forbade her son
To aim the rifle here;
"It were a sin," she said, "to harm
Or fright that friendly deer.
"This spot has been my pleasant home
Ten peaceful years and more;
And ever, when the moonlight shines,
She feeds before our door.
"The red men say that here she walked
A thousand moons ago;
They never raise the war-whoop here,
And never twang the bow.
"I love to watch her as she feeds,
And think that all is well
While such a gentle creature haunts
The place in which we dwell."
The youth obeyed, and sought for game
In forests far away,
Where, deep in silence and in moss,
The ancient woodland lay.
But once, in autumn's golden time,
He ranged the wild in vain,
Nor roused the pheasant nor the deer,
And wandered home again.
The crescent moon and crimson eve
Shone with a mingling light;
The deer, upon the grassy mead,
Was feeding full in sight.
He raised the rifle to his eye,
And from the cliffs around
A sudden echo, shrill and sharp,
Gave back its deadly sound.
Away into the neighbouring wood
The startled creature flew,
And crimson drops at morning lay
Amid the glimmering dew.
Next evening shone the waxing moon
As sweetly as before;
The deer upon the grassy mead
Was seen again no more.
But ere that crescent moon was old,
By night the red men came,
And burnt the cottage to the ground,
And slew the youth and dame.
Now woods have overgrown the mead,
And hid the cliffs from sight;
There shrieks the hovering hawk at noon,
And prowls the fox at night.
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I’ll protect the innocent
even while I may proclaim
my deep regard for who they are
controversy may be exclaimed
guiltless stated for my friends
this word is used at its most broad
when all children of the divine
deserve their refuge from abuse
even while I seek to proclaim
my admiration for their grit
stepping outside confining realms
leading the way for this questing one
on the shoulders of the perverse
this is how the public may respond
declaring wisdom I don’t share
when I see threads of commonality
in my heart I know we are the same
seeking power in our own way
being true to ourselves
while expressing how we live
humanity searching for a voice
I’ll add mine to the chorus
admitting that I’ve fallen far
while ascending to the heights
spectrums ranged in pursuit
my honest nature at last found
though at first I wrongly thought
I was alone when I was not
the free spirits led the way
I wish my voice could exclaim
and still I hold back my breath
protecting innocent like myself.
© 2018. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20180909.
Sep 9, 2018
Sep 9, 2018 at 10:57 PM UTC
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
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"O day! he cannot die
When thou so fair art shining!
O Sun, in such a glorious sky,
So tranquilly declining;
He cannot leave thee now,
While fresh west winds are blowing,
And all around his youthful brow
Thy cheerful light is glowing!
Edward, awake, awake--
The golden evening gleams
Warm and bright on Arden's lake--
Arouse thee from thy dreams!
Beside thee, on my knee,
My dearest friend, I pray
That thou, to cross the eternal sea,
Wouldst yet one hour delay:
I hear its billows roar--
I see them foaming high;
But no glimpse of a further shore
Has blest my straining eye.
Believe not what they urge
Of Eden isles beyond;
Turn back, from that tempestuous surge,
To thy own native land.
It is not death, but pain
That struggles in thy breast--
Nay, rally, Edward, rouse again;
I cannot let thee rest!"
One long look, that sore reproved me
For the woe I could not bear--
One mute look of suffering moved me
To repent my useless prayer:
And, with sudden check, the heaving
Of distraction passed away;
Not a sign of further grieving
Stirred my soul that awful day.
Paled, at length, the sweet sun setting;
Sunk to peace the twilight breeze:
Summer dews fell softly, wetting
Glen, and glade, and silent trees.
Then his eyes began to weary,
Weighed beneath a mortal sleep;
And their orbs grew strangely dreary,
Clouded, even as they would weep.
But they wept not, but they changed not,
Never moved, and never closed;
Troubled still, and still they ranged not--
Wandered not, nor yet reposed!
So I knew that he was dying--
Stooped, and raised his languid head;
Felt no breath, and heard no sighing,
So I knew that he was dead.
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Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have set us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!
But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.
I shot him dead because—
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That’s clear enough; although
He thought he’d ‘list, perhaps,
Off-hand like—just as I—
Was out of work—had sold his traps—
No other reason why.
Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You’d treat, if met where any bar is,
Or help to half a crown.
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Gray whale
Now that we are sinding you to The End
That great god
Tell him
That we who follow you invented forgiveness
And forgive nothing
I write as though you could understand
And I could say it
One must always pretend something
Among the dying
When you have left the seas nodding on their stalks
Empty of you
Tell him that we were made
On another day
The bewilderment will diminish like an echo
Winding along your inner mountains
Unheard by us
And find its way out
Leaving behind it the future
Dead
And ours
When you will not see again
The whale calves trying the light
Consider what you will find in the black garden
And its court
The sea cows the Great Auks the gorillas
The irreplaceable hosts ranged countless
And fore-ordaining as stars
Our sacrifices
Join your work to theirs
Tell him
That it is we who are important
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From the outskirts of the town,
Where of old the mile-stone stood,
Now a stranger, looking down
I behold the shadowy crown
Of the dark and haunted wood.
Is it changed, or am I changed?
Ah! the oaks are fresh and green,
But the friends with whom I ranged
Through their thickets are estranged
By the years that intervene.
Bright as ever flows the sea,
Bright as ever shines the sun,
But alas! they seem to me
Not the sun that used to be,
Not the tides that used to run.
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My stomach turned upside down
and inside and out
It felt like toxins
but in a good way
see I burnt away a layer of my skin
it was itching me
it was dry
it made me fell disgusting
I looked at myself and all I could see was this skin
looked like it was dipped in toxic
But a cure came around
it came in bunches
or a single pack
its sizes ranged from big to small
the cure surrounded me
it held me tight
it kept telling me to let the skin go
but I didn't know who I was with out it
But the cure showed me who I was with it
and as I let the toxic skin fall
I felt toxins in the air
it was clean
it was fresh
and I was unaware
this was what it was like
to be free
Mar 19, 2015
Mar 19, 2015 at 7:50 PM UTC
delightful, full sky of
orange, ranged from
rumbling tangerine
to toucan’s beak, eek-out a
shore horizon zenly leaning and
a sun sunk
Feb 21, 2014
Feb 21, 2014 at 2:19 PM UTC
The memory of a cruise ship
Royalty and majestic having a kick
The ship being the TITANIC
The journey of Bon Voyage
It all happened years ago
As the ocean waves flow
Hold on tight and don’t let go
The passengers ranged from who’s who to how did you come aboard?
The Titanic was ready to set sail
It was a cruise without fail
The weather was just right for an ocean cruise getaway
The passengers were feeling at ease
The seas were calm with a refreshing breeze
The passengers were dancing and exchanging conversation along with drinking with the Titanic avion
As the cruise ship proceeded into the horizon, something was about to happen
The ship hit a huge Ice Bank, and had some damage that turned into disaster
Destruction in the making
The ship was taking on water and started to descend to the sea
The Titanic being a ship that was unsinkable
But unthinkable
Commotion came over the passengers
Echoes of despair
The ship was steadily sinking
Flares being fired to draw attention to the ship’s distress
The thought being my soul to thee
There were no ships in the area, and the Titanic was going to be a ship no more
The Death toll was uncountable
The Titanic was now heading for the bottom of Davey Jones Locker
Titanic was a terror ship
The seas covering the Titanic ship treasure
Unseen pleasure
The Titanic in the history books for sure
The seas burial ground to explore
Titanic being in all of its glory
The Titanic with a story
Jun 11, 2021
Jun 11, 2021 at 3:24 PM UTC
THERE is grey in your hair.
Young men no longer suddenly catch their breath
When you are passing;
But maybe some old gaffer mutters a blessing
Because it was your prayer
Recovered him upon the bed of death.
For your sole sake -- that all heart's ache have known,
And given to others all heart's ache,
From meagre girlhood's putting on
Burdensome beauty -- for your sole sake
Heaven has put away the stroke of her doom,
So great her portion in that peace you make
By merely walking in a room.
Your beauty can but leave among us
Vague memories, nothing but memories.
A young man when the old men are done talking
Will say to an old man, "Tell me of that lady
The poet stubborn with his passion sang us
When age might well have chilled his blood.'
Vague memories, nothing but memories,
But in the grave all, all, shall be renewed.
The certainty that I shall see that lady
Leaning or standing or walking
In the first loveliness of womanhood,
And with the fervour of my youthful eyes,
Has set me muttering like a fool.
You are more beautiful than any one,
And yet your body had a flaw:
Your small hands were not beautiful,
And I am afraid that you will run
And paddle to the wrist
In that mysterious, always brimming lake
Where those What have obeyed the holy law
paddle and are perfect. Leave unchanged
The hands that I have kissed,
For old sake's sake.
The last stroke of midnight dies.
All day in the one chair
From dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have
ranged
In rambling talk with an image of air:
Vague memories, nothing but memories.
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1147
After a hundred years
Nobody knows the Place
Agony that enacted there
Motionless as Peace
Weeds triumphant ranged
Strangers strolled and spelled
At the lone Orthography
Of the Elder Dead
Winds of Summer Fields
Recollect the way—
Instinct picking up the Key
Dropped by memory—
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'Dockery was junior to you,
Wasn't he?' said the Dean. 'His son's here now.'
Death-suited, visitant, I nod. 'And do
You keep in touch with-' Or remember how
Black-gowned, unbreakfasted, and still half-tight
We used to stand before that desk, to give
'Our version' of 'these incidents last night'?
I try the door of where I used to live:
Locked. The lawn spreads dazzlingly wide.
A known bell chimes. I catch my train, ignored.
Canal and clouds and colleges subside
Slowly from view. But Dockery, good Lord,
Anyone up today must have been born
In '43, when I was twenty-one.
If he was younger, did he get this son
At nineteen, twenty? Was he that withdrawn
High-collared public-schoolboy, sharing rooms
With Cartwright who was killed? Well, it just shows
How much . . . How little . . . Yawning, I suppose
I fell asleep, waking at the fumes
And furnace-glares of Sheffield, where I changed,
And ate an awful pie, and walked along
The platform to its end to see the ranged
Joining and parting lines reflect a strong
Unhindered moon. To have no son, no wife,
No house or land still seemed quite natural.
Only a numbness registered the shock
Of finding out how much had gone of life,
How widely from the others. Dockery, now:
Only nineteen, he must have taken stock
Of what he wanted, and been capable
Of . . . No, that's not the difference: rather, how
Convinced he was he should be added to!
Why did he think adding meant increase?
To me it was dilution. Where do these
Innate assumptions come from? Not from what
We think truest, or most want to do:
Those warp tight-shut, like doors. They're more a style
Our lives bring with them: habit for a while,
Suddenly they harden into all we've got
And how we got it; looked back on, they rear
Like sand-clouds, thick and close, embodying
For Dockery a son, for me nothing,
Nothing with all a son's harsh patronage.
Life is first boredom, then fear.
Whether or not we use it, it goes,
And leaves what something hidden from us chose,
And age, and then the only end of age.
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--To M. M. M'B.
Above the Crags that fade and gloom
Starts the bare knee of Arthur's Seat;
Ridged high against the evening bloom,
The Old Town rises, street on street;
With lamps bejewelled, straight ahead,
Like rampired walls the houses lean,
All spired and domed and turreted,
Sheer to the valley's darkling green;
Ranged in mysterious disarray,
The Castle, menacing and austere,
Looms through the lingering last of day;
And in the silver dusk you hear,
Reverberated from crag and scar,
Bold bugles blowing points of war.
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I have apologies
for every single person
that I've ever wronged,
intentionally or not.
They ranged from the simplest
'sorry' to that stranger whose coffee I spilt,
to a three volume text of
all my emotions and regrets
where 'sorry' doesn't cut it,
but it's all I've left to say
to ease the guilt.
Except I don't know
where to start,
There are far too
many IOUs
and not enough time
but you're telling me,
"start by apologising
to your very own body,
your mind and your heart"
Jul 29, 2013
Jul 29, 2013 at 10:23 AM UTC
Once in the wind of morning
I ranged the thymy wold;
The world-wide air was azure
And all the brooks ran gold.
There through the dews beside me
Behold a youth that trod,
With feathered cap on forehead,
And poised a golden rod.
With mien to match the morning
And gay delightful guise
And friendly brows and laughter
He looked me in the eyes.
Oh whence, I asked, and whither?
He smiled and would not say,
And looked at me and beckoned
And laughed and led the way.
And with kind looks and laughter
And nought to say beside
We two went on together,
I and my happy guide.
Across the glittering pastures
And empty upland still
And solitude of shepherds
High in the folded hill,
By hanging woods and hamlets
That gaze through orchards down
On many a windmill turning
And far-discovered town,
With gay regards of promise
And sure unslackened stride
And smiles and nothing spoken
Led on my merry guide.
By blowing realms of woodland
With sunstruck vanes afield
And cloud-led shadows sailing
About the windy weald,
By valley-guarded granges
And silver waters wide,
Content at heart I followed
With my delightful guide.
And like the cloudy shadows
Across the country blown
We two fare on for ever,
But not we two alone.
With the great gale we journey
That breathes from gardens thinned,
Borne in the drift of blossoms
Whose petals throng the wind;
Buoyed on the heaven-heard whisper
Of dancing leaflets whirled
>From all the woods that autumn
Bereaves in all the world.
And midst the fluttering legion
Of all that ever died
I follow, and before us
Goes the delightful guide,
With lips that brim with laughter
But never once respond,
And feet that fly on feathers,
And serpent-circled wand.
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At last I entered a long dark gallery,
Catacomb-lined; and ranged at the side
Were the bodies of men from far and wide
Who, motion past, were nevertheless not dead.
“The sense of waiting here strikes strong;
Everyone’s waiting, waiting, it seems to me;
What are you waiting for so long?—
What is to happen?” I said.
“O we are waiting for one called God,” said they,
“(Though by some the Will, or Force, or Laws;
And, vaguely, by some, the Ultimate Cause;)
Waiting for him to see us before we are clay.
Yes; waiting, waiting, for God to know it.” …
“To know what?” questioned I.
“To know how things have been going on earth and below it:
It is clear he must know some day.”
I thereon asked them why.
“Since he made us humble pioneers
Of himself in consciousness of Life’s tears,
It needs no mighty prophecy
To tell that what he could mindlessly show
His creatures, he himself will know.
“By some still close-cowled mystery
We have reached feeling faster than he,
But he will overtake us anon,
If the world goes on.”
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I forgot to dream. The rest ranged
between dusk's final brew and morning's
touch of milk to tea leaves. It changed
through lucid shades of beige, fawning
into ochre tangles I could float
between. Dusk's final brew and morning's
brooding both left absence notes
for her, with hopes like hair hung freely
into ochre tangles. I could float
this air-bed boat to River Lethe,
wait for affirmation I was meant
for her. With hopes like hair, hung freely
parted, I saw futures where fervent
temptations swept the way. A modest
wait for affirmation? I was meant
to keep my thoughts of her suppressed -
I forgot to; dreamt her estranged
temptations swept, the way a modest
touch of milk to tea, leaves it changed.
Sep 21, 2011
Sep 21, 2011 at 6:55 AM UTC
When she first discovered the last fictitious and missing piece, that absent link that could create
That would fit so very perfectly between her fastidious reality and her dream filled escape
That piece was what filled her with the alluring thoughts of setting the diamond edged blades aside
To let her bloodied and gore encrusted wrist's lay. To finally heal her disfigured and cleaved thighs
To set aside the insomniac coloured nights, filled with a nervous tick called suffering and misery
Bringing dread filled terror for next days coming, day and night it creeps into her lightless sanity
It graced her with the forgotten hope, that daisy chains and blades of grass would keep her honest
Hope she had long abandoned as she hid within the scarred tissue upon her mangled conscience
Telling her that she was now allowed to forget her aphotic and distressing amorphous past
It was filled with many an onus and distrusts that she choked on; from lack of air, her brain begins to crack
Her Mother and her Father thought she was a "lacking" kind child, those that required little needs
It reminded her that she would never again have to repress and crunch down those memories
They rise inside her throat, until she regurgitates them along with what little food she would eat
She sits in her room most nights, crying softly alone and wishing to be as thin as the models on TV
That last puzzle piece was supplying her with a vociferous need to put the bottle of pills down,
Many had slipped their way down her esophagus, from diet to Analgesic's, they ranged wide
They were locked away in her father's medicine cabinet, so of course she was always punctilious
Puts an aspirin in place for the ones she stole, so her parents (Would they care?) were left oblivious
She tried to push that last piece in, shoving it somewhere between a wrong scene of the puzzle
So the piece was soon to be lost, destroyed within the struggle to find the perfect place
As she was losing to and was within her blithering mind, wild and frightened, filled with dismay
She then reverts to the false reality, in which she called her final escape.
The last daring and startling move, the check mate, the final set stage of the play
Where dreams become the reality, and reality becomes the dream
Jul 7, 2013
Jul 7, 2013 at 9:22 PM UTC
Cassie the Cat and Riley the Rat
knew their love could never be
Cassie knew that he was just a plaything
Riley admired how she could climb a tree
Cassie thought he was too cute
and Riley truly loved that mangy cat
They understood the ups and downs
defying the intermingled species trap
One night while Cassie was prowling the fence
with Riley snuggled atop of her soft fur
Billy the Bat ranged overhead
following them silently, undeterred
Watching Cassie and Riley share their love
being born of the night, Billy wanted that
They’d defied the intermingled species trap
He wanted that for himself, but, who’d love a bat?
Angered by his thoughts that bought about self pity
he sought out the Animal Gods
he told them about Cassie and Riley
Horrified, they sent out the Dogs
Damon Dog was their most elite destroyer
His mission was to ensure that Cassie Cat
would be integrated back into her own species
and he was to just dispose of the rat
Damon silently stalked Cassie and Riley
as they lay tucked together, Damon did pounce
as Riley leapt in front of his mangy cat, to protect
Damon, at that moment, his mission he did renounce
Damon had witnessed their love, and sighing he said
*‘It is not possible for you to remain together
Tabby cat, you must return to your own kind and
Rat, you can no longer be with her, EVER!’*
Cassie knew from the start their love was doomed
Riley knew without Cassie he’d never be complete
Cassie sighed and returned to her humans
Riley wept as he went back to his garbage heap
Epilogue:
Billy the bat continues to haunt the night
All morose and bordering on Goth
He interfered in the intermingled species trap
and is now married to a Sloth
Feb 26, 2014
Feb 26, 2014 at 5:40 AM UTC
In my heart the old love
Struggled with the new;
It was ghostly waking
All night through.
Dear things, kind things,
That my old love said,
Ranged themselves reproachfully
Round my bed.
But I could not heed them,
For I seemed to see
The eyes of my new love
Fixed on me.
Old love, old love,
How can I be true?
Shall I be faithless to myself
Or to you?
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The Setting Was A Colored Stone (Pare 1 Of 3)
For the barefoot girl, the faithful
album was an afternoon in the
sports bar where there had been
a guitar player and some ginger ale.
Now the trumpet was singing a wide
screen view of the big game.
Eliminating distractions, the crew
was focused on the game, ignoring
the girl as she wandered, in bare feet,
between the tables. No pretense
suggested that the medium was not
appropriate for those who climbed
railroad ties and those who drank beer
in moderation after negotiations about
the green sheaves and the upstairs room.
In this castle, time was suspended.
The Setting Was A Colored Stone (Part 2 Of 3)
Ashes were good for the roots of the plant
in the window where the response was
directed to the coolness, or the hot weather.
In sports, the weather seemed to be extreme.
It was always freezing cold the opposite;
coaches meant to be cautious watching for
heat stroke among the players. The club was
not louder than the dim barn where animals
were removed from the immediacy of the
last few weeks of the season. Some of the
birds could not fly; there were mice that
could climb to humble abodes in the rafters,
and the cats gathered apart from the dogs.
The heavy lifters had reassuring
incantations derived by the artificial
structures of the radiology through iconic
projection. Antenna reception hovered to
mark the insects with aesthetic devices,
a discovery by evolution.
The Setting Was A Colored Stone (Part 3 Of 3)
Screams came from the permutation and
signing a transcript of the spiritual drawing
which had been seen wandering among all
the other creatures living and working in
the flying building. The gathering showed
grinning teeth and disappeared. Found at
the bottom of the mineshaft, was the fictional
ring of speculations and associations
confronting the mischief of the few by the
motionless badges of authority. Life depended
on the weathered red boards where the climate
ranged like it was galloping across the public
space, proved free by the friendliness of
kindly associates and the universe of powers,
the authority of birds that did not fly and barns
that had flown away.
Nov 8, 2013
Nov 8, 2013 at 8:04 PM UTC
1134
The Wind took up the Northern Things
And piled them in the south—
Then gave the East unto the West
And opening his mouth
The four Divisions of the Earth
Did make as to devour
While everything to corners slunk
Behind the awful power—
The Wind—unto his Chambers went
And nature ventured out—
Her subjects scattered into place
Her systems ranged about
Again the smoke from Dwellings rose
The Day abroad was heard—
How intimate, a Tempest past
The Transport of the Bird—
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O, never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify.
As easy might I from my self depart
As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie.
That is my home of love; if I have ranged,
Like him that travels I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe though in my nature reigned
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stained
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;
For nothing this wide universe I call
Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.
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