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The very multitude are free to range—
We safely may affirm that human life
Is either fair or tempting, a soft scene
Grateful to sight, refreshing to the soul,
Or a forbidding tract of cheerless view;
Even as the same is looked at, or approached.
Permit me," said the Priest continuing, "here
To use an illustration of my thought,
Drawn from the very spot on which we stand.
—In changeful April, when, as he is wont,
Winter has reassumed a short lived sway
And whitened all the surface of the fields,
If—from the sullen region of the North
Towards the circuit of this holy ground
Your walk conducts you, ere the vigorous sun,
High climbing, hath attained his noon-tide height—
These Mounds, transversely lying side by side
From east to west, before you will appear
A dreary plain of unillumined snow,
With more than wintry cheerlessness and gloom
Saddening the heart. Go forward, and look back;
On the same circuit of this church-yard ground
Look, from the quarter whence the Lord of light,
