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AN OLD IDEA.
- STREAM of my life, dull, placid river, flow!
- I have no fear of the ingulfing seas:
- Neither I look before me nor behind,
- But, lying mute with wave‐dipped hand, float on.
- It was not always so. My brethren, see
- This oar‐stained, trembling palm. It keeps the sign
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- Of youth’s mad wrestling with the waves that drift
- Immutably, eternally along.
- I would have had them flow through fields and flowers,
- Giving and taking freshness, perfume, joy;
- It winds through—here. Be silent, O my soul!
- —The finger of God’s wisdom drew its line.
- So I lean back and look up to the stars,
- And count the ripples circling to the shore,
- And watch the solemn river rolling on
- Until it widen to the open seas.
