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-shaking. The Vision of the Archangels Slowly up silent peaks, the white edge of the world, Trod four archangels, clear against the unheeding sky, Bearing, with quiet even steps, and great wings furled, A little dingy coffin; where a child must lie, It was so tiny. (Yet, you had fancied, God could never Have bidden a child turn from the spring and the sunlight, And shut him in that lonely shell, to drop for ever Into the emptiness and silence, into the night. . . .) They then from the sheer summit cast, and watched it fall, Through unknown glooms, that frail black coffin -- and therein God's little pitiful Body lying, worn and thin, And curled up like some crumpled, lonely flower-petal -- Till it was no more visible; then turned again With sorrowful quiet faces downward to the plain. Seaside Swiftly out from the friendly lilt of the band, The crowd's good laughter, the loved eyes of men, I am drawn nightward; I must turn again Where, down beyond the low untrodden strand, There curves and glimmers outward to the unknown The old unquiet ocean. All the shade Is rife with magic and movement. I stray alone Here on the edge of silence, half afraid, Waiting a sign. In the deep heart of me The sullen waters swell towards the moon, And all my tides set seaward. From inland Leaps a gay fragment of some mocking tune, That tinkles and laughs and fades along the sand, And dies between the seawall and the sea. On the Death of Smet-Smet, the Hippopotamus-Goddess Song of a tribe of the ancient Egyptians (The Priests within the Temple) She was wrinkled and huge and hideous? She was our Mother. She was lustful and lewd? -- but a God; we had none other. In the day She was hidden and dumb, but at nightfall moaned in the shade; We shuddered and gave Her Her will in the darkness; we were afraid. (The People without) She sent us pain, And we bowed before Her; She smiled again And bade us adore Her. She solaced our woe And soothed our sighing; And what shall we do Now God is dying? (The Priests within) She was hungry and ate our children; -- how should we stay Her? She took our young men and our mai
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