| ONE thing in all things have I seen: |
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| One thought has haunted earth and air: |
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| Clangour and silence both have been |
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| Its palace chambers. Everywhere |
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| I saw the mystic vision flow |
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| And live in men and woods and streams, |
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| Until I could no longer know |
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| The stream of life from my own dreams. |
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| Sometimes it rose like fire in me |
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| Within the depths of my own mind, |
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| And spreading to infinity, |
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| It took the voices of the wind: |
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| It scrawled the human mystery— |
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| Dim heraldry—on light and air; |
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| Wavering along the starry sea |
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| I saw the flying vision there. |
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| Each fire that in God’s temple lit |
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| Burns fierce before the inner shrine, |
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| Dimmed as my fire grew near to it. |
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| And darkened at the light of mine. |
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| At last, at last, the meaning caught— |
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| The spirit wears its diadem; |
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| It shakes its wondrous plumes of thought |
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| And trails the stars along with them. |
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