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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!

-Robert Browning

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Then Welcome Each Rebuff

Robert Browning

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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!

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

Truth Never Hurt The Teller.

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

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

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

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.

Success In Marriage Is More Than Finding The Right Person: It Is Being The Right Person.

Who Knows Most, Doubts Most.

Paracelsus At Times I Almost Dream I Too Have Spent A Life The Sages’ Way, And Tread Once More Familiar Paths. Perchance I Perished In An Arrogant Self-reliance Ages Ago; And In That Act A Prayer For One More Chance Went Up So Earnest, So Instinct With Better Light Let In By Death, That Life Was Blotted Out — Not So Completely But Scattered Wrecks Enough Of It Remain, Dim Memories, As Now, When Once More Seems The Goal In Sight Again.

So Munch On, Crunch On, Take Your Nuncheon, Breakfast, Supper, Dinner, Luncheon!

I Show You Doubt, To Prove That Faith Exists.

Good To Forgive, Best To Forget.

Just For A Handful Of Silver He Left Us, Just For A Riband To Stick In His Coat.

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.

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.

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

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

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

They Are Perfect; How Else?-they Shall Never Change: We Are Faulty; Why Not?-we Have Time In Store.

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.

Talent Should Minister To Genius.

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

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

Finds Progress, Man's Distinctive Mark Alone, Not God's, And Not The Beast's; God Is, They Are, Man Partly Is, And Wholly Hopes To Be.

Love Is Energy Of Life.

Self Improvement

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

Genius Has Somewhat Of The Infantine; But Of The Childish Not A Touch Or Taint.

But Facts Are Facts And Flinch Not.

Wander At Will, Day After Day,-- Wander Away, Wandering Still-- Soul That Canst Soar! Body May Slumber: Body Shall Cumber Soul-flight No More.

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

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.

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

It Is The Glory And Good Of Art, That Art Remains The One Way Possible Of Speaking Truth, To Mouths Like Mine At Least.

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

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

Our Aspirations Are Our Responsibilities.

Ever Judge Of Men By Their Professions. For Though The Bright Moment Of Promising Is But A Moment, And Cannot Be Prolonged, Yet If Sincere In Its Moment's Extravagant Goodness, Why, Trust It, And Know The Man By It, I Say,- Not By His Performance; Which Is Half The World's Work, Interfere As The World Needs Must With Its Accidents And Circumstances: The Profession Was Purely The Man's Own. I Judge People By What They Might Be,- Not Are, Nor Will Be.

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

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.

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

Boot, Saddle, To Horse, And Away!

Grow Old Along With Me! The Best Is Yet To Be, The Last Of Life, For Which The First Was Made. Our Times Are In His Hand Who Saith, 'a Whole I Planned, Youth Shows But Half; Trust God: See All, Nor Be Afraid!

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

A Minute Of Success Pays For Years Of Failure.

God Smiles As He Has Always Smiled; Ere Suns And Moons Could Wax And Wane, Ere Stars Were Thundergirt, Or Piled The Heavens, God Thought On Me His Child; Ordained A Life For Me, Arrayed Its Circumstances, Every One To The Minutest; Ay, God Said This Head This Hand Should Rest Upon Thus, Ere He Fashioned Star Or Sun.

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.

The Devil, That Old Stager, Who Leads Downward, Perhaps, But Fiddles All The Way!

Any Nose May Ravage With Impunity A Rose.

Autumn Wins You Best By This Its Mute Appeal To Sympathy For Its Decay.

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

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.

How Very Hard It Is To Be A Christian!

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

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

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.

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

Art Remains The One Way Possible Of Speaking Truth.

Believeth With The Life, The Pain Shall Stop.

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!

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

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

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

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.

Earth Being So Good, Would Heaven Seem Best?

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

Why Stay On The Earth Except To Grow.

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

What Youth Deemed Crystal, Age Finds Out Was Dew.

Men Are Not Angels, Neither Are They Brutes.

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.

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

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

I Hold That A Man Should Strive To The Uttermost For His Life's Set Prize.

A Minute's Success Pays The Failure Of Years.

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

Lose Who May-i Still Can Say, Those Who Win Heaven, Blest Are They!

The Past Is Gained, Secure, And On Record.

Of What I Call God, And Fools Call Nature.

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

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

The Great Mind Knows The Power Of Gentleness.

We Mortals Cross The Ocean Of This World Each In His Average Cabin Of A Life; The Bests Not Big, The Worst Yields Elbowroom.

Unless You Can Love, As The Angels May, With The Breadth Of Heaven Betwixt You; Unless You Can Dream That His Faith Is Fast, Through Behoving And Unbeloving; Unless You Can Die When The Dream Is Past- Oh, Never Call It Loving!

Man Partly Is And Wholly Hopes To Be.

All Good Things Are Ours, Nor Soul Helps Flesh More, Now, Than Flesh Helps Soul!

How Good Is Man's Life, The Mere Living! How Fit To Employ All The Heart And The Soul And The Senses Forever In Joy!

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.

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

Best Be Yourself, Imperial, Plain, And True.

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.

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

I Am Grown Peaceful As Old Age Tonight.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Smiling The Boy Fell Dead.

The Candid Incline To Surmise Of Late That The Christian Faith Proves False.

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

Needs There Groan A World In Anguish Just To Teach Us Sympathy?

Shun Death, Is My Advice.

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.

Truth Is Truth Howe'er It Strike.

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

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

Man Seeks His Own Good At The Whole World's Cost.

Grow Old With Me. The Best Is Yet To Be. The Last Of Life For Which The First Was Made.

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.

Good Strong Thick Stupefying Incense-smoke!

Silence 'tis Awe Decrees.

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

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.

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

Each Life Unfulfilled, You See; It Hangs Still, Patchy And Scrappy: We Have Not Sighed Deep, Laughed Free, Starved, Feasted, Despaired,—been Happy.

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

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

How Strange Now, Looks The Life He Makes Us Lead; So Free We Seem, So Fettered Fast We Are!

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.

I Trust In Nature For The Stable Laws Of Beauty And Utility. Spring Shall Plant And Autumn Garner To The End Of Time.

Our Interest's On The Dangerous Edge Of Things. The Honest Thief, The Tender Murderer, The Superstitious Atheist.

I Have Lived, And Seen God's Hand Thro A Life Time, And All Was For The Best.

Oh, To Be In England Now That April's There, And Whoever Wakes In England Sees, Some Morning, Unaware.

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

Every One Soon Or Late Comes Round By Rome.

God's Justice, Tardy Though It Prove Perchance, Rests Never On The Track Until It Reach Delinquency.

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

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

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!

And Gain Is Gain, However Small.

I Judge People By What They Might Be, - Not Are, Nor Will Be.

There Is An Inmost Center In Us All, Where Truth Abides In Fullness;....and, To Know, Rather Consists In Opening Out A Way Where The Imprisoned Splendor May Escape, Then In Effecting Entry For A Light Supposed To Be Without.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

For Life, With All Its Yields Of Joy And Woe Is Just A Chance O' The Prize Of Learning Love.

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

Wedding Anniversary

Never Brag, Never Bluster, Never Blush.

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.

In God's Good Time, Which Does Not Always Fall On Saturday When The World Looks For Wages.

But There Are Times When Patience Proves At Fault.

A Lion May Die Of An Ass's Kick.

Most Progress Is Most Failure.

Once More On My Adventure Brave And New.

What A Name! Was It Love Or Praise? Speech Half-asleep Or Song Half-awake? I Must Learn Spanish, One Of These Days, Only For That Slow Sweet Name's Sake.

What So Wild As Words Are?

Brightest Truth, Purest Trust In The Universe, All Were For Me, In The Kiss Of One Girl.

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

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?

All June I Bound The Rose In Sheaves, Now, Rose By Rose, I Strip The Leaves.

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

One And All We Lend An Ear-nay, Science Takes Thereto- Encourages The Meanest Who Has Racked Nature Until He Gains From Her Some Fact, To State What Truth Is From His Point Of View, Mere Pin-point Though It Be: Since Many Such Conduce To Make A Whole, She Bids Our Friend Come Forward Unabashed And Haply Lend His Little Life-experience To Our Much Of Modern Knowledge.

One Wise Man's Verdict Outweighs All The Fools'.

I Walked A Mile With Pleasure; She Chattered All The Way. But Left Me None The Wiser For All She Had To Say. I Walked A Mile With Sorrow And Ne'er A Word Said She; But Oh, The Things I Learned From Her When Sorrow Walked With Me!

I Was Made And Meant To Look For You And Wait For You And Become Yours Forever.

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

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!

A Man In Armor Is His Armor's Slave.

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

Dear, Dead Women, With Such Hair, Too--what's Become Of All The Gold Used To Hang And Brush Their Bosoms?

If Two Lives Join, There Is Oft A Scar. They Are One And One, With A Shadowy Third; One Near One Is Too Far.

The Peerless Cup Afloat Of The Lake-lily Is An Urn Some Nymph Swims Bearing High Above Her Head.

When Pain Ends, Gain Ends Too.

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

Oh The Wild Joys Of Living! The Leaping From Rock To Rock ... The Cool Silver Shock Of The Plunge In A Pool's Living Waters.

Love Is The Energy Of Life.

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

All Will Be Gay When Noontide Wakes Anew The Buttercups, The Little Children's Dower.

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

What Of Soul Was Left, I Wonder, When The Kissing Had To Stop?

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

Where The Heart Lies, Let The Brain Lie Also.

How Good Is Life, The Mere Living!

Who Knows But The World May End Tonight

Take Away Love And Our Earth Is A Tomb.

Praise Is Deeper Than The Lips

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

Mid The Sharp, Short Emerald Wheat, Scarce Risen Three Fingers Well, The Wild Tulip At The End Of Its Tube, Blows Out Its Great Red Bell, Like A Thin Clear Bubble Of Blood, For The Children To Pick And Sell.

Let's Contend No More, Love, Strive Nor Weep: All Be As Before Love, - Only Sleep.

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!

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

Motherhood: All Love Begins And Ends There.

Stung By The Splendour Of A Sudden Thought.

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

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

Tis Looking Downward Makes One Dizzy.

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

For I Say This Is Death And The Sole Death,- When A Man's Loss Comes To Him From His Gain, Darkness From Light, From Knowledge Ignorance, And Lack Of Love From Love Made Manifest.

All Service Is The Same With God.

Lofty Designs Must Close In Like Effects.

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.

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

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

From The Sprinkled Isles, Lily On Lily, That O'erlace The Sea.

So, Fall Asleep Love, Loved By Me... For I Know Love, I Am Loved By Thee.

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