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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CALLED, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I rise, I pass; / the feast is on, bright is the board
Last Line: And cover me.
Alternate Author Name(s): Burke, Fielding
Subject(s): Pity


I RISE, I pass;
The feast is on, bright is the board,
Undrained the comrade glass;
Love's sheltering eyes are deep and nigh;
Fame waits with shining word;
But sweeter, goldening the sphere,
A voice falls from another sky;
The wasting world I do not hear,
And no god laughs as I pass by,
A wanderer.

Unpausing lowers
The gleam of her from other airs,
And Being's guarded doors
Are open wide for journey free
Where wait my chosen stars;
And o'er me, O what lustres break
Of that desire, Reality,
That burns a thousand suns to make
One nightingale to sing for me,
A soul awake!

Far, far I sped
Down moonless lanes from doubt to doubt;
With hasting, hungry tread
Up slopes of frost unpitying
Where the last star went out;
There fell I in unlifting dark,
And lying while an aeon's wing
Dragged o'er me bare, wind-stript and stark,
As leafless planets dream of Spring,
Dreamed she would hark.

Then by me bound,
Came one who wore my lost career
With star on star pinned round,
And stood him by my bones to stare.
With pity's ancient sneer
He mocked my bleachen nudity;
Then did she turn, then did she care,
And pausing where I might not see
She let the winds blow back her hair
And cover me.





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