Nature is not as you imagine her:
She's not a mold, nor yet a soulless mask-
She is made up of soul and freedom
She is made up of love and speech . . . ...
Reproach me not e'en if I earn your indignation;
Know: of us two you are to be more envied far.
Unlike my love for you, yours is sincere, unmarred
By jealousy's mistrust, its rancour and vexation. ...
Why moan, why wail you, wind of night,
With such despair, such frenzied madness?
Why is your voice now full of might,
Now piteous and tinged with sadness? ...
There is an hour at night full of an awesome wonder,
When universal silence o'er the whole world lies
And when the cosmic chariot rolls, wakening no thunder,
Into the sanctuary of the skies. ...
Columbus, take your laurel wreath!
You've done the map of whole Earth and Nations
And finished to the end the list
Of deals, unfinished in the word's creation. ...
The sadness gripped my heart - and dimly
Came the remembrance of the old,
When all was going well and simply,
And life - a dream of the real world. ...
I thought to do a deed of chivalry,
An act of worth, which haply in her sight
Who was my mistress should recorded be
And of the nations. And, when thus the fight
Faltered and men once bold with faces white
Turned this and that way in excuse to flee,
I only stood, and by the foeman's might
Was overborne and mangled cruelly.
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