Celestial flotsam, blazing spars on high,
Drifts in the meteor month from some wrecked star,
Strew oft th' unwrinkled ocean of the sky,
And pass no more accounted of than be
Long dulses limp that stripe a mundane sea.
The sun his kingdom fills with light, but all
Save where it strikes some planet and her moons
Across cold chartless gulfs ordained to fall,
Void antres, reckoneth no man's nights or noons,
But feeling forth as for some outmost shore,
Faints in the blank of doom, and is no more.
God scattereth His abundance as forgot,
And what then doth he gather? If we know,
'Tis that One told us it was life. 'For not
A sparrow,' quoth he, uttering long ago
The strangest words that e'er took earthly sound,
'Without your Father falleth to the ground.'
PERDITA.
_I go beyond the commandment_.' So be it. Then mine be the blame,
The loss, the lack, the yearning, till life's last sand be run,--
I go beyond the commandment, yet honour stands fast with her claim,
And what I have rued I shall rue; for what I have done--I have done.
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