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Lionel Johnson










                    Bagley Wood

      THE night is full of stars, full of magnificence:
      Nightingales hold the wood, and fragrance loads the dark.
      Behold, what fires august, what lights eternal! Hark,
      What passionate music poured in passionate love's defence!
      Breathe but the wafting wind's nocturnal frankincense!
      Only to feel this night's great heart, only to mark
      The splendours and the glooms, brings back the patriarch,
      Who on Chaldean wastes found God through reverence.

      Could we but live at will upon this perfect height,
      Could we but always keep the passion of this peace,
      Could we but face unshamed the look of this pure light,
      Could we but win earth's heart, and give desire release:
      Then were we all divine, and then were ours by right
      These stars, these nightingales, these scents: then shame would cease.

D. H. Lawrence

 from Pansies THE WHITE HORSE The youth walks up to the white horse, to put its halter on and the horse looks at him in silence. They are s...

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