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III.

If there be some true meaning and a sign

In all the altars where sad suppliants pray,

And if the words they sometime subtly twine,

Be not unpregnant of a deeper lay,

What depths of mystery might not then be read,

What gages of new hope lie undiscerned,

In all the purpose that thy beauties wed,

And all the thought in glowing shrine inurned,

In the unfathomable music, weaving

The young glad utterance of unconscious vows,

And in the eloquence, quickening and relieving,

Like sunset lingering round becalmèd prows;

The heaven that wooes, now flashes, from that eye

Hath stol’n Jove’s lightning and his joys from high.

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{4}

IV.

Fain would I speak of all thy hopes disclose,

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