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Sometimes, I know not why, nor how, nor whence,
  A change comes over me, and then the task
  Of common life slips from me. Would you ask
What power is this which bids the world go hence?
  Who knows? I only feel a faint perfume
  Steal through the rooms of life; a saddened sense
Of something lost; a music as of brooks
That babble to the sea; pathetic looks
  Of closing eyes that in a darkened room
  Once dwelt on mine: I feel the general doom
Creep nearer, and with God I stand alone.
  O mystic sense of sudden quickening!
Hope’s lark-song rings, or life’s deep undertone
  Wails through my heart — and then I needs must sing.
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William James Dawson
(1854-1928) |
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Oxford Book
of English Mystical Verse p. 391 |
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