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Keats' Poems and Letters

Sonnet 16: To Kosciusko

Good Kosciusko, thy great name alone

Is a full harvest whence to reap high feeling;

It comes upon us like the glorious pealing

Of the wide spheres - an everlasting tone.

And now it tells me, that in worlds unknown,

The names of heroes, burst from clouds concealing,

And changed to harmonies, for ever stealing

Through cloudless blue, and round each silver throne.

It tells me too, that on a happy day,

When some good spirit walks upon the earth,

Thy name with Alfred's, and the great of yore

Gently commingling, gives tremendous birth

To a loud hymn, that sounds far, far away

To where the great God lives for evermore.

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