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t my hand, By Hebron's palm-trees cool and dark; Nor pitched my tent at even-fall, On dust where Job of old has lain, Nor dreamed beneath its canvas wall, The dream of Jacob o'er again. One vast world-page remains unread; How shine the stars in Chaldea's sky, How sounds the reverent pilgrim's tread, How beats the heart with God so nigh How round gray arch and column lone The spirit of the old time broods, And sighs in all the winds that moan Along the sandy solitudes! In thy tall cedars, Lebanon, I have not heard the nations' cries, Nor seen thy eagles stooping down Where buried Tyre in ruin lies. The Christian's prayer I have not said In Tadmor's temples of decay, Nor startled, with my dreary tread, The waste where Memnon's empire lay. Nor have I, from thy hallowed tide, O Jordan! heard the low lament, Like that sad wail along thy side Which Israel's mournful prophet sent! Nor thrilled within that grotto lone Where, deep in night, the Bard of Kings Felt hands of fire direct his own, And sweep for God the conscious strings. I have not climbed to Olivet, Nor laid me where my Saviour lay, And left His trace of tears as yet By angel eyes unwept away; Nor watched, at midnight's solemn time, The garden where His prayer and groan, Wrung by His sorrow and our crime, Rose to One listening ear alone. I have not kissed the rock-hewn grot Where in His mother's arms He lay, Nor knelt upon the sacred spot Where last His footsteps pressed the clay; Nor looked on that sad mountain head, Nor smote my sinful breast, where wide His arms to fold the world He spread, And bowed His head to bless--and died! 1848. THE REWARD Who, looking backward from his manhood's prime, Sees not the spectre of his misspent time? And, through the shade Of funeral cypress planted thick behind, Hears no reproachful whisper on the wind From his loved dead? Who bears no trace of passion's evil force? Who shuns thy sting, O terrible Remorse? Who does not cast On the thronged pages of his memory's book, At times, a sad and half-reluctant look, Regretful of the past? Alas! the evil which we fain would shun We do, and leav
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