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Rh And Paris, Honor's fount—O name that never time forgets!—

Look you! how high in our sad heavens her ray of glory jets!

Look! as your crescent horn but late filled its dark curve with light,

So grows America on earth amid the nations bright!—

Or is it, crystal sphere serene that hast no mortal stain,

You do not mind, at all, these things, which man has done in vain?

Oh, can it be, then, nature's law

That her the vision fails,—

The dream divine, and holy awe

That in man most avails?

And know you not, celestial orb

The light men's souls from you absorb

Beholding, when dark deaths they risk,

With highest instincts in accord,

How pure in heaven your golden disk

the Risen Lord?

IV

Upon the border of eternity—

As some Greek runner, on high mountain ways,

Whom now at eve his speed of morn delays,

Hears the far rote of his own native sea—