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Rats They Fought The Dogs And Killed The Cats, And Bit The Babies In The Cradles, And Ate The Cheeses Out Of The Vats, And Licked The Soup From The Cook's Own Ladles. Split Open The Kegs Of Salted Sprats, Made Nests Inside Men's Sunday Hats, And Even Spoiled The Women's Chats By Drowning Their Speaking With Shrieking And Squeaking In Fifty Different Sharps And Flats.

-Robert Browning

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Rats They Fought The

Robert Browning

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Rats They Fought The Dogs And Killed The Cats, And Bit The Babies In The Cradles, And Ate The Cheeses Out Of The Vats, And Licked The Soup From The Cook's Own Ladles. Split Open The Kegs Of Salted Sprats, Made Nests Inside Men's Sunday Hats, And Even Spoiled The Women's Chats By Drowning Their Speaking With Shrieking And Squeaking In Fifty Different Sharps And Flats.

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All We Have Gained Then By Our Unbelief Is A Life Of Doubt Diversified By Faith, For One Of Faith Diversified By Doubt: We Called The Chess-board White-we Call It Black.

Rats They Fought The Dogs And Killed The Cats, And Bit The Babies In The Cradles, And Ate The Cheeses Out Of The Vats, And Licked The Soup From The Cook's Own Ladles. Split Open The Kegs Of Salted Sprats, Made Nests Inside Men's Sunday Hats, And Even Spoiled The Women's Chats By Drowning Their Speaking With Shrieking And Squeaking In Fifty Different Sharps And Flats.

In This World, Who Can Do A Thing, Will Not; And Who Would Do It, Cannot, I Perceive: Yet The Will's Somewhat — Somewhat, Too, The Power — And Thus We Half-men Struggle.

Open My Heart, And You Will See Graved Inside Of It ‘italy.'

Be Sure That God Ne'er Dooms To Waste The Strength He Deigns Impart.

But How Carve Way I' The Life That Lies Before, If Bent On Groaning Ever For The Past?

The Ultimate, Angels' Law, Indulging Every Instinct Of The Soul There Where Law, Life, Joy, Impulse Are One Thing!

The Best Things In Life Can Never Be Kept; They Must Be Given Away. A Smile, A Kiss, And Love If You Are Asking If I'd Hurt You, The Answer Is Never. If You Are Asking If I Love U,the Answer Is Forever. If You Are Asking If I Want U,the Answer Is I Do. If You Are Asking What I Value Most, The Answer Is You Grow Old Along With Me, The Best Is Yet To Be.

'tis Well Averred, A Scientific Faith's Absurd.

Positive Atheism

Lost, Lost! One Moment Knelled The Woe Of Years.

Other Heights In Other Lives, God Willing.

Any Nose May Ravage With Impunity A Rose.

Sing, Riding 's A Joy! For Me I Ride.

Go Practice If You Please With Men And Women: Leave A Child Alone For Christ's Particular Love's Sake!

But Little Do Or Can The Best Of Us: That Little Is Achieved Through Liberty.

If You Get Simple Beauty And Naught Else, You Get About The Best Thing God Invents.

My Care Is For Myself; Myself Am Whole And Sole Reality.

Things Are Where Things Are, And, As Fate Has Willed, So Shall They Be Fulfilled.

When A Man's Busy, Why Leisure Strikes Him As Wonderful Pleasure: 'faith, And At Leisure Once Is He? Straightway He Wants To Be Busy.

There Is Nothing So Unpardonable As To Consent To A Senseless, Aimless, Purposeless Life.

Only I Discern Infinite Passion, And The Pain Of Finite Hearts That Yearn.

For The Preacher's Merit Or Demerit, It Were To Be Wished That The Flaws Were Fewer In The Earthen Vessel, Holding Treasure, But The Main Thing Is, Does It Hold Good Measure Heaven Soon Sets Right All Other Matters!

Who Knows Most, Doubts Most.

Silence 'tis Awe Decrees.

Fail I Alone, In Words And Deeds? Why, All Men Strive And Who Succeeds?

I Hear You Reproach, "but Delay Was Best, For Their End Was A Crime." Oh, A Crime Will Do As Well, I Reply, To Serve For A Test As A Virtue Golden Through And Through, Sufficient To Vindicate Itself And Prove Its Worth At A Moment's View! . . . . . . Let A Man Contend To The Uttermost For His Life's Set Prize, Be It What It Will! The Counter Our Lovers Staked Was Lost As Surely As If It Were Lawful Coin; And The Sin I Impute To Each Frustrate Ghost Is-the Unlit Lamp And The Ungirt Loin, Though The End In Sight Was A Vice, I Say.

Have You Found Your Life Distasteful? My Life Did, And Does, Smack Sweet. Was Your Youth Of Pleasure Wasteful? Mine I Saved And Hold Complete. Do Your Joys With Age Diminish? When Mine Fail Me, I'll Complain. Must In Death Your Daylight Finish? My Sun Sets To Rise Again.

How Good Is Life, The Mere Living!

I Count Life Just A Stuff To Try The Soul's Strength On.

A Minute's Success Pays The Failure Of Years.

When The Liquor's Out, Why Clink The Cannikin?

The Rain Set Early In Tonight, The Sullen Wind Was Soon Awake, It Tore The Elm-tops Down For Spite, And Did Its Best To Vex The Lake: I Listened With Heart Fit To Break. When Glided In Porphyria; Straight She Shut The Cold Out And The Storm, And Kneeled And Made The Cheerless Grate Blaze Up And All The Cottage Warm.

What So Wild As Words Are?

Fair Or Foul The Lot Apportioned Life On Earth, We Bear Alike.

I Dare Not So Honor My Mere Wishes And Prayers As To Put Them For A Moment Beside Your Noble Acts; But This Know, I Would Rather Submit To The Worst Of Deaths, So Far As Pain Goes, Than Have A Single Dog Or Cat Tortured On The Pretence Of Sparing Me A Twinge Or Two.

O Woman-country! Wooed Not Wed, Loved All The More By Earth's Male-lands, Laid To Their Hearts Instead.

To Do Good Things In The World, First You Must Know Who You Are And What Gives Meaning To Your Life.

Tis Looking Downward Makes One Dizzy.

Progress Is The Law Of Life: Man Is Not Man As Yet.

Aspire, Break Bounds. Endeavor To Be Good, And Better Still, Best.

Are There Not, Dear Michael, Two Points In The Adventure Of The Diver,- One, When A Beggar He Prepares To Plunge; One, When A Prince He Rises With His Pearl? Festus, I Plunge.

How Sad And Bad And Mad It Was - But Then, How It Was Sweet

Into The Street The Piper Stepped, Smiling First A Little Smile As If He Knew What Magic Slept In His Quiet Pipe The While. And The Piper Advanced And The Children Followed.

Thou Art My Single Day, God Lends To Leaven What Were All Earth Else, With A Feel Of Heaven.

O Lyric Love, Half Angel And Half Bird. And All A Wonder And A Wild Desire.

Once More On My Adventure Brave And New.

Who Hears Music Feels His Solitude Peopled At Once.

Inspirational Music

How He Lies In His Rights Of A Man! Death Has Done All Death Can. And Absorbed In The New Life He Leads, He Recks Not, He Heeds Nor His Wrong Nor My Vengeance; Both Strike On His Senses Alike, And Are Lost In The Solemn And Strange Surprise Of The Change.

'tis Only When They Spring To Heaven That Angels Reveal Themselves To You.

Inscribe All Human Effort With One Word, Artistry's Haunting Curse, The Incomplete!

Strike When Thou Wilt, The Hour Of Rest, But Let My Last Days Be My Best.

It 's Wiser Being Good Than Bad; It 's Safer Being Meek Than Fierce; It 's Fitter Being Sane Than Mad. My Own Hope Is, A Sun Will Pierce The Thickest Cloud Earth Ever Stretched; That After Last Returns The First, Though A Wide Compass Round Be Fetched.

A Lion May Die Of An Ass's Kick.

God Is In His Heaven, All's Right With The World.

And I Have Written Three Books On The Soul, Proving Absurd All Written Hitherto, And Putting Us To Ignorance Again.

Be Sure They Sleep Not Whom God Needs.

The Body Sprang At Once To The Height, And Stayed; But The Soul,-no!

"with This Same Key Shakespeare Unlocked His Heart" Once More! Did Shakespeare? If So, The Less Shakespeare He!

The Aim, If Reached Or Not, Makes Great The Life: Try To Be Shakespeare, Leave The Rest To Fate!

But There Are Times When Patience Proves At Fault.

Day! Faster And More Fast. O'er Night's Brim, Day Boils At Last.

Good To Forgive, Best To Forget.

God Is Seen God In The Star, In The Stone, In The Flesh, In The Soul And The Clod.

We Find Great Things Are Made Of Little Things, And Little Things Go Lessening Till At Last Comes God Behind Them.

You Call For Faith: I Show You Doubt, To Prove That Faith Exists. The More Of Doubt, The Stronger Faith, I Say, If Faith O'ercomes Doubt.

Grow Old With Me! The Best Is Yet To Be.

God! Thou Art Love! I Build My Faith On That.

He Guides Me And The Bird. In His Good Time!

Night Conceals A World But Reveals A Universe.

Men Are Not Angels, Neither Are They Brutes.

Twere Too Absurd To Slight For The Hereafter The Todays Delight!

I See My Way As Birds Their Trackless Way. I Shall Arrive,- What Time, What Circuit First, I Ask Not; But Unless God Send His Hail Or Blinding Fire-balls, Sleet Or Stifling Snow, In Some Time, His Good Time, I Shall Arrive: He Guides Me And The Bird. In His Good Time.

There Shall Never Be One Lost Good! What Was, Shall Live As Before; The Evil Is Null, Is Nought, Is Silence Implying Sound; What Was Good Shall Be Good, With For Evil So Much Good More; On The Earth The Broken Arcs; In The Heaven, A Perfect Round.

Who Knows Most, Doubts Most; Entertaining Hope Means Recognizing Fear.

Say Not "a Small Event!" Why "small"? Costs It More Pain That This Ye Call A "great Event" Should Come To Pass From That? Untwine Me From The Mass Of Deeds Which Make Up Life, One Deed Power Shall Fall Short In Or Exceed!

I Want To Know A Butcher Paints, A Baker Rhymes For His Pursuit, Candlestick-maker Much Acquaints His Soul With Song, Or, Haply Mute, Blows Out His Brains Upon The Flute.

Can We Love But On Condition That The Thing We Love Must Die?

And Gain Is Gain, However Small.

Might She Have Loved Me? Just As Well She Might Have Hated, Who Can Tell!

For Sudden The Worst Turns The Best To The Brave, The Black Minute's At End, And The Elements' Rage, The Fiend Voices That Rave, Shall Dwindle, Shall Blend, Shall Change, Shall Become First A Peace Out Of Pain, Then A Light, Then Thy Breast, O Thou Soul Of My Soul! I Shall Clasp Thee Again, And With God Be The Rest!

No Work Begun Shall Ever Pause For Death.

What's The Earth With All Its Art, Verse, Music, Worth — Compared With Love, Found, Gained, And Kept?

Wedding Anniversary

The Sad Rhyme Of The Men Who Proudly Clung To Their First Fault, And Withered In Their Pride.

What's Come To Perfection Perishes. Things Learned On Earth We Shall Practice In Heaven; Works Done Least Rapidly Art Most Cherishes.

I Have No Little Insight Into The Feelings Of Furniture, And Treat Books And Prints With A Reasonable Consideration. How Some People Use Their Pictures, For Instance, Is A Mystery To Me; Very Revolting All The Same--portraits Obliged To Face Each Other For Ever--prints Put Together In Portfolios.

Truth Is Within Ourselves.

Sorrow, The Heart Must Bear, Sits In The Home Of Each, Conspicuous There. Many A Circumstance, At Least, Touches The Very Breast. For Those Whom Any Sent Away,--he Knows: And In The Live Man's Stead, Armor And Ashes Reach The House Of Each.

My Sun Sets To Rise Again.

How Well I Know What I Mean To Do When The Long Dark Autumn Evenings Come, And Where, My Soul, Is Thy Pleasant Hue? With The Music Of All Thy Voices, Dumb In Life’s November Too! I Shall Be Found By The Fire, Suppose, O’er A Great Wise Book As Beseemeth Age, While The Shutters Flap As The Cross-wind Blows, And I Turn The Page, And I Turn The Page, Not Verse Now, Only Prose!

The Great Mind Knows The Power Of Gentleness.

Death Was Past, Life Not Come: So He Waited.

Generations Pass While Some Tree Stands, And Old Families Last Not Three Oaks.

Our Aspirations Are Our Responsibilities.

Hand Grasps At Hand, Eye Lights Eye In Good Friendship, And Great Hearts Expand And Grow One In The Sense Of This World's Life.

Ah, Love, - You Are My Unutterable Blessing.....i Am In Full Sunshine Now.

Truth Is Within Ourselves. There Is An Inmost Center In Us All, Where The Truth Abides In Fullness.

Pleasure Must Succeed To Pleasure, Else Past Pleasure Turns To Pain

Shun Death, Is My Advice.

What's A Man's Age? He Must Hurry More, That's All; Cram In A Day, What His Youth Took A Year To Hold.

The Moment Eternal - Just That And No More - When Ecstasy's Utmost We Clutch At The Core While Cheeks Burn, Arms Open, Eyes Shut, And Lips Meet!

Shakespeare Was Of Us, Milton Was Of Us, Burns, Shelley, Were With Us. They Watch From Their Graves!

All Service Ranks The Same With God,- With God, Whose Puppets, Best And Worst, Are We: There Is No Last Nor First.

Truth Is Truth Howe'er It Strike.

Go In Thy Native Innocence, Rely On What Thou Hast Of Virtue, Summon All, For God Towards Thee Hath Done His Part, Do Thine.

T'was A Thief Said The Last Kind Word To Christ. Christ Took The Kindness And Forgave The Theft.

It Was Roses, Roses, All The Way, With Myrtle Mixed In My Path Like Mad.

Rejoice That Man Is Hurled, From Change To Change Unceasingly, His Soul's Wings Never Furled!

Desire Joy And Thank God For It. Renounce It, If Need Be, For Other's Sake. That's Joy Beyond Joy.

You Never Know What Life Means Till You Die; Even Throughout Life, Tis Death That Makes Life Live.

What A Thing Friendship Is - World Without End.

A Pretty Woman's Worth Some Pains To See, Nor Is She Spoiled, I Take It, If A Crown Completes The Forehead Pale And Tresses Pure.

Every One Soon Or Late Comes Round By Rome.

A People Is But The Attempt Of Many To Rise To The Completer Life Of One; And Those Who Live As Models For The Mass Are Singly Of More Value Than They All.

God Be Thanked, The Meanest Of His Creatures Boasts Two Soul-sides, One To Face The World With, One To Show A Woman When He Loves Her.

When I Love Most, Love Is Disguised. In Hate; And When Hate Is Surprised, In Love, Then I Hate Most.

All Service Is The Same With God.

It's Wiser Being Good Than Bad; It's Safer Being Meek Than Fierce: It's Fitter Being Sane Than Mad.

Lofty Designs Must Close In Like Effects.

A Face To Lose Youth For, To Occupy Age With The Dream Of, Meet Death With.

The World And Life's Too Big To Pass For A Dream

The Heavens And Earth Stay As They Were; My Heart Beats As It Beat: The Truth Remains The Truth.

Kiss Me As If You Made Believe You Were Not Sure This Eve, How My Face, Your Flower, Had Pursed It's Petals Up.

Man Partly Is And Wholly Hopes To Be.

Pippa's Song The Year's At The Spring The Day's At The Morn Morning's At Seven, The Hill Side's Dew-pearled The Lark's On The Wing The Snail's On The Thorn God's In His Heaven- All's Right With The World

Heart, Fear Nothing, For, Heart, Thou Shalt Find Her- Next Time, Herself!-not The Trouble Behind Her

I Trust In Nature For The Stable Laws Of Beauty And Utility. Spring Shall Plant And Autumn Garner To The End Of Time. I Trust In God,-the Right Shall Be The Right And Other Than The Wrong, While He Endures. I Trust In My Own Soul, That Can Perceive The Outward And The Inward,-nature's Good And God's.

A Minute Of Success Pays For Years Of Failure.

Must In Death Your Daylight Finish? My Sun Sets To Rise Again.

Measure Your Mind's Height By The Shade It Casts.

Was There Nought Better Than To Enjoy? No Feat Which, Done, Would Make Time Break, And Let Us Pent-up Creatures Through Into Eternity, Our Due? No Forcing Earth Teach Heaven's Employ?

I Know A Mount, The Gracious Sun Perceives First When He Visits, Last, Too, When He Leaves The World; And, Vainly Favored, It Repays The Day-long Glory Of His Steadfast Gaze By No Change Of Its Large Calm Front Of Snow.

The Sea Heaves Up, Hangs Loaded O'er The Land, Breaks There, And Buries Its Tumultuous Strength.

Over My Head His Arm He Flung, Against The World.

Why Comes Temptation But For Man To Meet And Master And Make Crouch Beneath His Foot, And So Be Pedestaled In Triumph?

But Facts Are Facts And Flinch Not.

O Never Star Was Lost; Here We All Aspire To Heaven And There Is Heaven Above Us. If I Stoop Into A Dark Tremendous Sea Of Cloud, It Is But For A Time; I Press God's Lamp Close To My Breast; Its Splendor Soon Or Late Will Pierce The Gloom. I Shall Emerge Some Day.

I, Painting From Myself And To Myself, Know What I Do, Am Unmoved By Men's Blame Or Their Praise Either.

Then Welcome Each Rebuff That Turns Earth's Smoothness Rough, Each Sting That Bids Nor Sit Nor Stand, But Go! Be Our Joys Three-parts Pain! Strive, And Hold Cheap The Strain; Learn, Nor Account The Pang; Dare, Never Grudge The Throe!

You Should Not Take A Fellow Eight Years Old And Make Him Swear To Never Kiss The Girls.

In Heaven I Yearn For Knowledge, Account All Else Inanity; On Earth I Confess An Itch For The Praise Of Fools - That's Vanity

Ignorance Is Not Innocence But Sin.

Purity And Innocence

Life Is An Empty Dream.

Poetry, Like Love, Is Something We Never Truly Say Goodbye To.

A Man In Armour Is His Armour's Slave.

The Trouble That Most Of Us Find With The Modern Matched Sets Of Clubs Is That They Don't Really Seem To Know Any More About The Game Than The Old Ones Did.

Since There My Past Life Lies, Why Alter It?

Sappho Survives, Because We Sing Her Songs; And Eschylus, Because We Read His Plays!

If You Can Sit At Set Of Sun And Count The Deeds That You Have Done And Counting Find Oneself-denying Act, One Word That Eased The Heart Of Him That Heard. One Glance Most Kind, Which Fell Like Sunshine Where He Went, Then You May Count That Day Well Spent.

I Say, The Acknowledgment Of God In Christaccepted By Thy Reason, Solves For Theeall Questions In The Earth And Out Of It,and Has So Far Advanced Thee To Be Wise.

Oh, Good Gigantic Smile O' The Brown Old Earth, This Autumn Morning! How He Sets His Bones To Bask I' The Sun, And Thrusts Out Knees And Feet. From The Ripple To Run Over In Its Mirth

And Inasmuch As Feeling, The East's Gift, Is Quick And Transient,- Comes, And Lo! Is Gone, While Northern Thought Is Slow And Durable.

Is Your Love For The Lord Sufficient To Give All Your Time And Talents To His Work?

There Are Those Who Believe Something, And Therefore Will Tolerate Nothing; And On The Other Hand, Those Who Tolerate Everything, Because They Believe Nothing.

When Pain Ends, Gain Ends Too.

I Give The Fight Up: Let There Be An End, A Privacy, An Obscure Nook For Me. I Want To Be Forgotten Even By God.

The Lie Was Dead And Damned, And Truth Stood Up Instead.

All's Love, Yet All's Law.

He Who Did Well In War Just Earns The Right, To Begin Doing Well In Peace.

Outside Are The Storms And Strangers: We — Oh, Close, Safe, Warm Sleep I And She, — I And She!

If All The World Is A Stage And Life Is Just A Play Upon It, Get Me Two Seats In The Stalls.

Look Not Down But Up!

Talent Should Minister To Genius.

In The First Is The Last, In Thy Will Is My Power To Believe.

Good Strong Thick Stupefying Incense-smoke!

Though Rome's Gross Yoke Drops Off, No More To Be Endured, Her Teaching Is Not So Obscured By Errors And Perversities, That No Truth Shines Athwart The Lies.

Truth Never Hurt The Teller.

The Common Problem, Yours, Mine, Everyone's Is ? Not To Fancy What Were Fair In Life Provided It Could Be ? But, Finding First What May Be, Then Find How To Make It Fair Up To Our Means.

At Last Awake From Life, That Insane Dream We Take For Waking Now.

No Thought Which Ever Stirred A Human Breast Should Be Untold.

I Show You Doubt, To Prove That Faith Exists.

But God Has A Few Of Us To Whom He Whispers In The Ear; The Rest May Reason And Welcome; 'tis We Musicians Know.

There Are Three Ways Of Learning Golf: By Study, Which Is The Most Wearisome; By Imitation, Which Is The Most Fallacious; And By Experience, Which Is The Most Bitter.

Better Have Failed In The High Aim, As I, Than Vulgarly In The Low Aim Succeed As, God Be Thanked! I Do Not.

Out Of Your Whole Life Give But A Moment! All Of Your Life That Has Gone Before, All To Come After It, -so You Ignore, So You Make Perfect The Present, Condense, In A Rapture Of Rage, For Perfection's Endowment, Thought And Feeling And Soul And Sense.

O World, As God Has Made It! All Is Beauty.

That Great Brow And The Spirit-small Hand Propping It.

That Low Man Seeks A Little Thing To Do, Sees It And Does It: This High Man, With A Great Thing To Pursue, Dies Ere He Knows It. That Low Man Goes On Adding One To One, His Hundred's Soon Hit: This High Man, Aiming At A Million, Misses An Unit. That, Has The World Here-should He Need The Next, Let The World Mind Him! This, Throws Himself On God, And Unperplext Seeking Shall Find Him.

God Is The Perfect Poet, Who In His Person Acts His Own Creations.

Tis Man's To Explore Up And Down, Inch By Inch, With The Taper His Reason.

No, When The Fight Begins Within Himself, / A Man's Worth Something.

Earth Is Crammed With Heavens.

Of Power Does Man Possess No Particle: Of Knowledge-just So Much As Show That Still It Ends In Ignorance On Every Side.

Hatred And Cark And Care, What Place Have They / In Yon Blue Liberality Of Heaven?.

That We Devote Ourselves To God, Is Seen In Living Just As Though No God There Were.

Ambition Is Not What Man Does... But What Man Would Do.

That's The Wise Thrush; He Sings Each Song Twice Over, Lest You Should Think He Never Could Recapture The First Fine Careless Rapture!

Still More Labyrinthine Buds The Rose.

Truth Is Within Ourselves; It Takes No Rise From Outward Things, Whate'er You May Believe. There Is An Inmost Centre In Us All, Where Truth Abides In Fulness; And Around, Wall Upon Wall, The Gross Flesh Hems It In, This Perfect, Clear Perception-which Is Truth. A Baffling And Perverting Carnal Mesh Binds It, And Makes All Error: And To Know Rather Consists In Opening Out A Way Whence The Imprisoned Splendour May Escape, Than In Effecting Entry For A Light Supposed To Be Without.

God Is The Perfect Poet.

No! Let Me Taste The Whole Of It, Fare Like My Peers, The Heroes Of Old, Bear The Brunt, In A Minute Pay Glad Life's Arrears Of Pain, Darkness And Cold.

On The Earth The Broken Arcs; In The Heaven A Perfect Round.

I Write From A Thorough Conviction That It Is The Duty Of Me, And With The Belief That, After Every Drawback And Shortcoming, I Do My Best, All Things Considered--that Is For Me, And, So Being, The Not Being Listened To By One Human Creature Would, I Hope, In Nowise Affect Me.

This Could But Have Happened Once,- And We Missed It, Lost It Forever.

What I Aspired To Be And Was Not, Comforts Me.

What Joy Is Better Than The News Of Friends?

Such Ever Was Love's Way: To Rise, It Stoops.

A Pretty Woman's Worth Some Pains To See.

Let Friend Trust Friends, And Love Demand Love's Like.

White Shall Not Neutralize The Black, Nor Good Compensate Bad In Man, Absolve Him So; Life's Business Being Just The Terrible Choice.

I Am Grown Peaceful As Old Age Tonight.

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