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POETRY, by                    
First Line: What is this quenching of immortal thirst?
Last Line: To light his way and make his labor sweet.
Subject(s): Poetry & Poets


What is this quenching of immortal thirst?
A numbing draught? An aimless anodyne?
A furtive filching of a drink divine
That earth may prove less aridly accurst?
Not ever so. High poetry has long
Awakened hours and animated days
Of all who hunt by honor-open ways
The bread of beauty and the sword of song.
Through poetry man moves against the dark,
Accoutred for the daunting of defeat;
Through poetry he rises with the lark
And is at home where earth and heaven meet;
Through poetry his clay has caught a spark
To light his way and make his labor sweet.





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