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NOTHER day, and with it that brute joy,

Or that prophetic rapture of the boy

Whom every morning brings as glad a breath

As if it dawned upon the end of death!

All other days have run the common course,

And left me at their going neither worse

Nor better for them; only, a little older,

A little sadder, and a little colder.

But this, it seems as if this day might be

The day I somehow always thought to see,

And that should come to bless me past the scope

And measure of my farthest-reaching hope.