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To the
Setting Sun

“Hail glorious orb! thou sinkest to thy rest
In bright tranquility, yet leav’st behind
An ever-jarring world, which is a nest
Of griefs, and wrongs, and ills of every kind.

Thou smil’st at parting, for that world seeming
And thou unconscious of its crafty guile,
Think it that bright gladness cheers it with its [?]
And that contentment sparkles in its smile.
But didst thou know what coldness of the heart
Its votaries feel, meanwhile their laughing eye [eyes?]
Would mimic joy, thou ne’er again would’st do[?]
Thy beams of radiance from the evening sky,
But veil’d in clouds, or wrapt in vapour gray.
Like mourner sad, would’st slowly sink away [.]

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See how beneath the moon beams’ smile
Yon little billow heaves its breast,
And foams and sparkles for awhile,
And, murmuring then subsides to rest.
So man, the sport of strife and care,
Rises on time’s eventful sea,
And, having swelled a moment there,
Sinks then into Eternity.

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