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The Song of Kansas.

INTRODUCTION.

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I STRIKE the chord of the enchanted shell
To Clio given, whose soft strains lingering dwell
With him who makes the ancient thing his joy,
And grateful is, those strains his steps decoy:--
With him who strays by ivy-mantled wall
And hears the trembling voice of Ages call:-
With him who in some dark abode or wild
Finds the first footprints of rude Nature's child,
With kalends numbered from the oldest page
And cut in sullen stone moss-grown with age:-
With him who dares to ride the endless main,
To tread the mountain tops and pathless plain,
Or to explore a world whose people eld
No page had known or civil eye beheld;
Or where within these ancient realms new forms
Arise, where civil life is built, where warms
The patriot heart, and in the fireside blaze
We find the old expiring as we gaze.
Fondly with the blue-eyed Muse I dwell, she
Who haunts the restless realms of History.

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