< Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu
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86

POETRY

our own capacity. Like the sea's horizon, the bounds of poetry are

traced only by the sweep of our vision. The ocean's verge advances always before us with our progress; there is always an infinite which still awaits.

This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded heaven,
And I said to my spirit When we become the enfolders of those orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of everything in them, shall we be fill'd and satisfied then?
And my spirit said No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond.[1]
  1. ↑ Walt Whitman.
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