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James Russell Lowell - Fancy`s Casuistry
Work rating: Low

How struggles with the tempest`s swells
That warning of tumultuous bells!
The fire is loose! and frantic knells
    Throb fast and faster,
As tower to tower confusedly tells
    News of disaster.

But on my far-off solitude
No harsh alarums can intrude;
The terror comes to me subdued
    And charmed by distance,
To deepen the habitual mood
    Of my existence.

Are those, I muse, the Easter chimes?
And listen, weaving careless rhymes
While the loud city`s griefs and crimes
    Pay gentle allegiance
To the fine quiet that sublimes
    These dreamy regions.

And when the storm o`erwhelms the shore,
I watch entranced as, o`er and o`er,
The light revolves amid the roar
    So still and saintly,
Now large and near, now more and more
    Withdrawing faintly.

This, too, despairing sailors see
Flash out the breakers `neath their lee
In sudden snow, then lingeringly
    Wane tow`rd eclipse,
While through the dark the shuddering sea
    Gropes for the ships.

And is it right, this mood of mind
That thus, in revery enshrined,
Can in the world mere topics find
    For musing stricture,
Seeing the life of humankind
    Only as picture?

The events in line of battle go;
In vain for me their trumpets blow
As unto him that lieth low
    In death`s dark arches,
And through the sod hears throbbing slow
    The muffled marches.

O Duty, am I dead to thee
In this my cloistered ecstasy,
In this lone shallop on the sea
    That drifts tow`rd Silence?
And are those visioned shores I see
    But sirens` islands?

My Dante frowns with lip-locked mien,
As who would say, ``Tis those, I ween,
Whom lifelong armor-chafe makes lean
    That win the laurel;`
But where _is_ Truth? What does it mean,
    The world-old quarrel?

Such questionings are idle air:
Leave what to do and what to spare
To the inspiring moment`s care,
    Nor ask for payment
Of fame or gold, but just to wear
    Unspotted raiment.
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