You ask how love can keep the mortal soul
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Strong to the pitch of joy throughout the years.
Ask how your brave cicada on the bough
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Keeps the long sweet insistence of his cry;
Ask how the Pleiads steer across the night
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In their serene unswerving mighty course;
Ask how the wood-flowers waken to the sun,
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Unsummoned save by some mysterious word;
Ask how the wandering swallows find your eaves,
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Upon the rain-wind with returning spring;
Ask who commands the ever punctual tide
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To keep the pendulous rhythm of the sea;
And you shall know what leads the heart of man
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To the far haven of his hopes and fears.