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‘ have you been, my pale, pale son, all night in the winter storm?’ (Hark! the joy-bells chime in their passionate rhyme.) ‘0 mother! the bird is sheltered, the beast housed warm— And they, with their bodies’ comfort, are thus content; But I, in debt for a soul, have the long night spent In shunning the question of God, till the spirit within Fought mad through the human walls of my quivering skin At its kindred passion without in the howling night ’Where is thy brother?‘ O question not giving respite. O mother! what do they answer, those lips, blood red, Of nature, in sport with her thousand deaths? I questioned. ’Send me an answer.‘ She spoke not, the Mother of Death