Page:Poems Hoffman.djvu/470

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Weak, dying, timorous man?
Slain by the storm's caressing,
Choked by the breaker's blessing;
Nature's great laws transgressing,
Changing and weak and small.
Man of decay partaker,
Only to Nature's Maker;
Ruler of storm and breaker,
I shall arise to fall.

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Alas! a broken column
Reared in a city solemn,
Thus hath my glory fallen,
All things are new and strange.
Far from the wild waves' rollic,
Far from the billows' frolic;
At last to rise symbolic
Of death, decay and change.

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