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C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Smoke

By Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

LIGHT-WINGED Smoke, Icarian bird,

Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight;

Lark without song, and messenger of dawn,

Circling above the hamlets as thy nest;

Or else, departing dream and shadowy form

Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts;

By night star-veiling, and by day

Darkening the light and blotting out the sun,—

Go thou, my incense, upward from this hearth,

And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame.