Page:The Golden Violet.pdf/268

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To make me the low slave of vanity, Heartless and humbled? O my own sweet power, Surely thy songs are made for more than this! What a worst waste of feeling and of life Have been the imprints of my roll of time, Too much, too long! To what use have I turn'd The golden gifts in which I pride myself? They are profaned; with their pure ore I made A temple resting only on the breath Of heedless worshippers. Alas! that ever Praise should have been what it has been to me— The opiate of my heart. Yet I have dream'd Of things which cannot be; the bright, the pure, That all of which the heart may only dream; And I have mused upon my gift of song, And deeply felt its beauty, and disdain'd