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From: wsh@hou5g.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.poems
Subject: The Apparition, by Herman Melville
Message-ID: <292@hou5g.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Oct-83 15:31:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: hou5g.292
Posted: Fri Oct  7 15:31:06 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Oct-83 07:29:24 EDT
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ
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                                 THE APPARITION
                                 (A Retrospect)

                                       by

                                 Herman Melville
                                   (1819-1891)

Convulsions came; and, where the field
     Long slept in pastoral green,
A goblin-mountain was upheaved
(Sure the scared sense was all deceived),
     Marl-glen and slag-ravine.

The unreserve of Ill was there,
     The clinkers in her last retreat;
But, ere the eye could take it in,
Or mind could comprehension win,
     It sunk!--and at our feet.

So, then, Solidity's a crust--
     The core of fire below;
All may go well for many a year,
But who can think without a fear
     Of horrors that happen so?