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-.-(¦ 48 )
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VL-TOLLE LEGE!
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Prostrate in his deep dejection, underne...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
-.-(¦ 48 )
-.- (¦ 48 )
Vl-Tolle Lege!
VL-TOLLE LEGE !
Prostrate In His Deep Dejection, Underne...
Prostrate in his deep dejection , underneath a fig-tree ' s shade ,
All his spirit moved to sadness by the storm his passion made : There he lay , the great Augustine , groaning , weeping dismal tears ;
There , in bitter accusation , rose the past of misspent years . Thirty summers had gone o ' er him , thirty harvests he had seen ,
But the sheaves of his salvation had not yet been gathered in . Through the winding paths of pleasurestrewn with all enchanting flowers ,
In the throng of youthful revel he had chased , the dancing hours . He had searched the garnered wisdom of the fruitful human mind
, And in systems philosophic sought for good , but failed to find . _Now at Milanin his garden vaulted by Italian skies
Self-consumed , by restless longings , on the joyless earth , he lies . Echoes of the syren voices which had charmed his vacant ear ,
Came through time ' s sepulchral cavern , mocking him with fiendish jeer ; EarthlScience vainly strove to pierce that cavern ' gloom with light
Shed ambitious y sparks , which fell all fruitless in the abysmal night : , Showing but the foul pollutionlike a lamp within a tomb ,
, And the fatal hand which ever wrote the sentence of his doom . Dreadfully the past and present in that moment meeting stood ;
Dreadfully the future loomed in all its vast infinitude : Not a ray of comfcrt glances through the darkness anywhere ;
He must lie as he has fallen , all alone with his despair . Hark to youthful voices singing , by the breezes borne along :
Tolle lege ! Tolle lege ! is the burden of the song . Hark ! he lists the echoed chorus , and the words have force divine ,
Enter like an inspiration to his being ' s inmost shrine . Tolle lege ! Tolle lege ! Nothing hears he now but this :
Eagerly he seeks the mansion where the sacred volume is : There he reads in Paul ' s Epistles that impassioned eloquence ,
Pleading for the spirit ' freedom from the evil powers of sense : Calling it to life and action fromthe death-like sleep of sin ;
, For the night is well nigh spent , the day is well nigh ushered in . Seemed it that the page was vividbeaming with reflected rays
From the throne of God , which flooded , all his soul with crescent blaze . Then he knew the niht was endednight of sinand doubt and fear
Knew the day-spring g in the heavens , , felt his own , salvation near . ; _'
W . S . D .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), March 2, 1863, page 48, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_02031863/page/48/
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