Page:Songs of the Affections.pdf/249

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But, oh! the price of bitter tears, Paid for the lonely power That throws at last, o'er desert years, A darkly-glorious dower!

Like flower-seeds, by the wild wind spread, So radiant thoughts are strew'd; —The soul whence those high gifts are shed, May faint in solitude!

And who will think, when the strain is sung, Till a thousand hearts are stirr'd, What life-drops, from the minstrel wrung, Have gush'd with every word?

None, none!—his treasures live like thine, He strives and dies like thee; —Thou, that hast been to the pearl's dark shrine, O wrestler with the sea!