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SONNET: 1, 20 by FREDERICK GODDARD TUCKERMAN

First Line: STILL CRAVES THE SPIRIT: NEVER NATURE SOLVES
Last Line: AND HIM, OPHION, EARLIEST OF THE GODS?

Still craves the spirit: never Nature solves
That yearning which with her first breath began,
And in its blinder instinct still devolves
On god or pagod, Manada or man,
Or lower yet, brute service, apes and wolves.
By Borneo's surf the bare barbarian
Still to the sands beneath him bows to pray:
Give Greek his god, the Bheel his devil sway
And what remains to me, who count no odds
Between such Lord and him I saw today,
The farmer mounted on his market load,
Bundles of wool and locks of upland hay,
The son of toil that his own works bestrode,
And him, Ophion, earliest of the gods?



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