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With earnest pains unchecked by dread
Of Power's far-stretching hand,
The bold good Man his labour sped
At nature's pure command;
Heart-soothed, and busy as a wren,
While, in a hollow nook,

She moulds her sight-eluding den
Above a murmuring brook.

His task accomplished to his mind,
The twain ere break of day

Creep forth, and through the forest wind
Their solitary way;

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Few words they speak, nor dare to slack
Their pace from mile to mile,

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Till they have crossed the quaking marsh,
And reached the lonely Isle.

The sun above the pine-trees showed

A bright and cheerful face;

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And Ina looked for her abode,

The promised hiding-place;

She sought in vain, the Woodman smiled;
No threshold could be seen,

Nor roof, nor window ;—all seemed wild
As it had ever been.

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Advancing, you might guess an hour,
The front with such nice care

Is masked, "if house it be or bower,"
But in they entered are;

As shaggy as were wall and roof

With branches intertwined,

So smooth was all within, air-proof,
And delicately lined:

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"Father of all, upon thy care
And mercy am I thrown;

Be thou my safeguard!"—such her prayer
When she was left alone,
Kneeling amid the wilderness

When joy had passed away,

And smiles, fond efforts of distress

To hide what they betray!

The prayer is heard, the Saints have seen,

Diffused through form and face,

Resolves devotedly serene;

That monumental grace

Of Faith, which doth all passions tame
That Reason should control;

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And shows in the untrembling frame
A statue of the soul.

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PART III.

'Tis sung in ancient minstrelsy
That Phoebus wont to wear
The leaves of any pleasant tree
Around his golden hair;

Till Daphne, desperate with pursuit

Of his imperious love,

At her own prayer transformed, took root,
A laurel in the grove.

Then did the Penitent adorn

His brow with laurel green;

And 'mid his bright locks never shorn

No meaner leaf was seen;

And poets sage, through every age,
About their temples wound

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The bay; and conquerors thanked the Gods,

With laurel chaplets crowned.

Into the mists of fabling Time
So far runs back the praise

Of Beauty, that disdains to climb
Along forbidden ways;

That scorns temptation; power defies

Where mutual love is not;

And to the tomb for rescue flies

When life would be a blot.

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To this fair Votaress a fate

More mild doth Heaven ordain

Upon her Island desolate;

And words, not breathed in vain,

Might tell what intercourse she found,
Her silence to endear;

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What birds she tamed, what flowers the ground Sent forth her peace to cheer.

To one mute Presence, above all,
Her soothed affections clung,
A picture on the cabin wall

By Russian usage hung—

The Mother-maid, whose countenance bright

With love abridged the day;

And, communed with by taper light,

Chased spectral fears away.

And oft, as either Guardian came,
The joy in that retreat

Might any common friendship shame,
So high their hearts would beat;
And to the lone Recluse, whate'er
They brought, each visiting

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Was like the crowding of the year
With a new burst of spring.

But when she of her Parents thought,
The pang was hard to bear;

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And, if with all things not enwrought,

That trouble still is near.

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And set her Spirit free

From the altar of this sacrifice,
In vestal purity.

Or gentle Nature close her eyes,

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Yet, when above the forest-glooms

The white swans southward passed, High as the pitch of their swift plumes

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In phrase that now with echoes soft
Haunted her lonely cell;

She saw the hereditary bowers,

She heard the ancestral stream;

The Kremlin and its haughty towers
Forgotten like a dream!

PART IV.

THE ever-changing Moon had traced
Twelve times her monthly round,
When through the unfrequented Waste
Was heard a startling sound;

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A shout thrice sent from one who chased
At speed a wounded deer,

Bounding through branches interlaced,
And where the wood was clear.

The fainting creature took the marsh,
And toward the Island fled,

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While plovers screamed with tumult harsh

Above his antlered head;

This, Ina saw; and, pale with fear,

Shrunk to her citadel;

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The desperate deer rushed on, and near

The tangled covert fell.

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