Page:Maryland, my Maryland, and other poems - Randall - 1908.pdf/139

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KEATS

Methinks, their sad song sadly calls
From every breeze that swells and falls
Along the Coliseum’s halls.

And that sad song shall murmur there,
Upon the pulses of the air,
With incense-wings of warbled prayer.

And it shall sigh and fondly flit
When dome and tomb are bright moonlit,
O’er him whose name was water-writ.

’Twas writ on water, but the wave
That surges from a hallowed grave
Is not old Ocean’s liquid slave.

’Tis the tumultuous Sea of Song—
The Scroll of the Anointed Throng
To whom eternities belong!

Thy name, dear Keats, had water-birth,
And now, in its majestic worth,
It heaves its billows over earth!

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