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THE DREAMERS, by                    
First Line: But how bring back from those vague outland meadows
Last Line: And yet you pale at death, the darkening stream.


("His night sleep doth change his knowledge" Ecclesiasticus XL.)

But how bring back from those vague outland meadows
Wherein the mind released from wandering fares,
How keep the knowledge that our waking yields
Up to the dark receding? Ah, we knew
The thing to still this clamor, kill these cares.
We trod a spacious country where the days
Of one life clearly fell as water-springs
That lip the cool green ledge. Also we knew
The necessary thing for that fresh flow
That might but for the bastard sun have run
Into eternity where there's no turning....
And so it is with sleep. And as the light
Spills westward dimly, and the eyelids take
The gradual day upon them as from who
Shall say what tender giving, we awake
And what was known is lost; the fine thread broken....

And yet you pale at death, the darkening stream.





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