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XXI.

They hear, soul-blushing, and repentant shed
Unwholesome thoughts in wholesome tears, and pour
Their sin to earth,–and with low drooping head
Receive the solemn blessing, and implore
Its grace–then soberly with chasten’d tread,
They meekly press towards the gusty door
With humbled eyes that go to graze upon
The lowly grass–like him of Babylon.

XXII.

The lowly grass!–O water-constant mind!
Fast-ebbing holiness!–soon-fading grace
Of serious thought, as if the gushing wind
Through the low porch had wash’d it from the face
For ever!–How they lift their eyes to find
Old vanities!–Pride wins the very place
Of meekness, like a bird, and flutters now
With idle wings on the curl-conscious brow!

XXIII.

And lo! with eager looks they seek the way
Of old temptation at the lowly gate;
To feast on feathers, and on vain array,
And painted cheeks, and the rich glistering state
Of jewel-sprinkled locks,–But where are they,
The graceless haughty ones that used to wait
With lofty neck, and nods, and stiffen’d eye?–
None challenge the old homage bending by.

XXIV.

In vain they look for the ungracious bloom
Of rich apparel where it glow’d before,–
For Vanity has faded all to gloom,
And lofty Pride has stiffen’d to the core,
For impious Life to tremble at its doom,–
Set for a warning token evermore,
Whereon, as now, the giddy and the wise
Shall gaze with lifted hands and wond’ring eyes.

XXV.

The aged priest goes on each Sabbath morn,
But shakes not sorrow under his gray hair;
The solemn clerk goes lavender’d and shorn
Nor stoops his back to the ungodly pair;–
And ancient lips that pucker’d up in scorn,
Go smoothly breathing to the house of pray’r;
And in the garden-plot, from day to day,
The lily blooms its long white life away.

XXVI.

And where two haughty maidens used to be,
In pride of plume, where plumy Death had trod,
Trailing their gorgeous velvets wantonly,
Most unmeet pall, over the holy sod;
There, gentle stranger, thou may’st only see
Two sombre Peacocks.
Age, with sapient nod
Marking the spot, still tarries to declare
How they once lived, and wherefore they are there.