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TWILIGHT LIFE

I live a twilight life—not dark, but yet Enjoying but a dim uncertain light; Not glad nor sad, no victim of regret, But ever not so near to day as night: Pleasure's intoxication now no more Can fill me with its rapture—for I know Earthward we fall at last though high we soar, And time shall soon all gladness overthrow: Yet now I feel not sorrow's bitterness Crashing me down as once with leaden weight, For that same fate that makes our pleasures less, The pressure too of misery doth abate: So now I rest content, whate'er befall, To live or die—"the readiness is all."

RESIGNATION

To form vast projects which a dozen lives To carry out would be by fer too short, Though each were as a Cromwell's or a Clive's, And fate disposed to favour, not to thwart: To long for action yet feel impotent To act were action offered to my hand; To mourn for ever over time misspent, While runneth out my life's fast-falling sand: Could fate a sadder destiny devise When most disposed to humble human pride? And yet no longer now it mortifies, And I in patient fortitude abide: For yet I am myself and would not be Another even for an empire's fee.

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