Introduction to the Songs of Experience

I
Hear the voice of the Bard!
Who Present, Past, & future sees
Whose ears have heard,
The Holy Word,
That walk'd among the ancient trees.

Calling the lapsed Soul
And weeping in the evening dew:
That might controll,
The starry pole;
And fallen fallen light renew!

O Earth O Earth return!
Arise from out the dewy grass;
Night is worn,
And the morn
Rises from the slumberous mass.

Turn away no more:
Why wilt thou turn away
The starry floor
The watry shore
Is giv'n thee till the break of day.
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Paradise Lost: Book  8 (1674 version) by John Milton
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THE Angel ended, and in Adams Eare
So Charming left his voice, that he a while
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixt to hear;
Then as new wak't thus gratefully repli'd.
What thanks sufficient, or what recompence
Equal have I to render thee, Divine
Hystorian, who thus largely hast allayd
The thirst I had of knowledge, and voutsaf't
This friendly condescention to relate
Things else by me unsearchable, now heard
With wonder, but delight, and, as is due,
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I need more time, a simple day in Paris hotels and window shopping.
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from Don Juan: Canto 1, Stanzas 41-42 by Lord Byron (George Gordon)
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His classic studies made a little puzzle,
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Ave Atque Vale by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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I
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II
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