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The Alde

Topics: classic

How near I walked to Love,     How long, I cannot tell.     I was like the Alde that flows     Quietly through green level lands,     So quietly, it knows     Their shape, their greenness and their shadows well;     And then undreamingly for miles it goes     And silently, beside the sea.     Seamews circle over,     The winter wildfowl wings,     Long and green the grasses wave     Between the river and the sea.     The sea's cry, wild or grave,     From, bank to low bank of the river rings;     But the uncertain river though it crave     The sea, knows not the sea.     Was that indeed salt wind?     Came that noise from falling     Wild waters on a stony shore?     Oh, what is this new troubling tide     Of eager waves that pour     Around and over, leaping, parting, recalling?...     How near I moved (as day to same day wore)     And silently, beside the sea!

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"How near I walked to Love,..."

John Frederick Freeman's contribution to classic is further solidified by the brilliance found in "The Alde"... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

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