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THE BLOSSOMING OF THE SOLITARY
DATE-TREE.

A LAMENT.

Or call my destiny niggard? O no! no!
It is her largeness, and her overflow,
Which being incomplete, disquieteth me so
( 4.

For never touch of gladness stirs my heart,
But tim'rously beginning to rejoice
Like a blind Arab, that from sleep doth start
In lonesome tent, I listen for thy voice.
Beloved! 'tis not thine; thou art not there!
Then melts the bubble into idle air,
And wishing without hope I restlessly despair.

I seem to have an indistinct recollection of having read either
in one of the ponderous tomes of George of Venice, or in some
other compilation from the uninspired Hebrew Writers, an
Apologue or Rabbinical Tradition to the following purpose:
While our first parents stood before their offended Maker,
and the last words of the sentence were yet sounding in Adam's
ear, the guileful false serpent, a counterfeit and a usurper from
the beginning, presumptuously took on himself the character
of advocate or mediator, and pretending to intercede for Adam,
exclaimed: "Nay, Lord, in thy justice, not so! for the Man The mother with anticipated glee

5.

was the least in fault. Rather let the Woman return at once Smiles o'er the child, that standing by her chair, to the dust, and let Adam remain in this thy Paradise." And And flatt'ning its round cheek upon her knee, the word of the Most High answered Satan: "The tender Looks up, and doth its rosy lips prepare

mercies of the wicked are cruel. Treacherous Fiend! if with

guilt like thine, it had been possible for thee to have the heart of a Man, and to feel the yearning of a human soul for its counterpart, the sentence, which thou now counsellest, should have been inflicted on thyself."

To mock the coming sounds. At that sweet sight
She hears her own voice with a new delight;
And if the babe perchance should lisp the notes
aright,

6.

Then is she tenfold gladder than before!
But should disease or chance the darling take,
What then avail those songs, which sweet of yore
Were only sweet for their sweet echo's sake?
Dear maid! no prattler at a mother's knee
Was e'er so dearly prized as I prize thee:

[The title of the following poem was suggested by a fact mentioned by Linnæus, of a Date tree in a nobleman's garden, which year after year had put forth a full show of blossoms, but never produced fruit, till a branch from a Date-tree had been conveyed from a distance of some hundred leagues. The first leaf of the MS. from which the poem has been transcribed, and which contained the two or three introductory stanzas, is wanting: and the author has in vain taxed his memory to repair the loss. But a rude draught of the Why was I made for love, and love denied to me!

poem contains the substance of the stanzas, and the reader is requested to receive it as the subsitute. It is not impossible, that some congenial spirit, whose years do not exceed those of the author at the time the poem was written, may find a pleasure in restoring the Lament to its original integ. rity by a reduction of the thoughts to the requisite Metre.S. T.C.

1.

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BENEATH the blaze of a tropical sun the mountain peaks are the Thrones of Frost, through the absence of objects to reflect the rays. What no one with us shares, seems scarce our own." The presence of a ONE,

The best beloved, who loveth me the best,

is for the heart, what the supporting air from within is for the hollow globe with its suspended car. Deprive it of this, and all without, that would have buoyed it aloft even to the seat of the gods, becomes a burthen, and crushes it into flatness.

2.

The finer the sense for the beautiful and the lovely, and the fairer and lovelier the object presented to the sense; the more exquisite the individual's capacity of joy, and the more ample his means and opportunities of enjoyment, the more heavily will he feel the ache of solitariness, the more unsubstantial becomes the feast spread around him. What matters it, whether in fact the viands and the ministering graces are shadowy or real, to him who has not hand to grasp nor arms to embrace them?

3.

Imagination; honorable Aims;

Free Commune with the choir that cannot die;
Science and Song; Delight in little things,
The buoyant child surviving in the man;
Fields, forests, ancient mountains, ocean, sky,
With all their voices-O dare I accuse
My earthly lot as guilty of my spleen,

FANCY IN NUBIBUS,

OR THE POET IN THE CLOUDS.

O! IT is pleasant, with a heart at ease,
Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,
To make the shifting clouds be what you please,
Or le: the easily persuaded eyes

Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould
Of a friend's fancy; or with head bent low
And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold

"Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go From mount to mount through CLOUDLAND, gor geous land!

Or list'ning to the tide, with closed sight,
Be that blind bard, who on the Chian strand

By those deep sounds possess'd, with inward light
Beheld the ILIAD and the ODYSSEY

Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.

THE TWO FOUNTS.

STANZAS ADDRESSED TO A LADY ON HER RECOVERY
WITH UNBLEMISHED LOOKS, FROM A SEVERE AT
TACK OF PAIN.

'Twas my last waking thought, how it could be
That thou, sweet friend, such anguish shouldst endure
When straight from Dreamland came a Dwarf, and he
Could tell the cause, forsooth, and knew the cure.

Methought he fronted me, with peering look
Fix'd on my heart; and read aloud in game
The loves and griefs therein, as from a book:
And utter'd praise like one who wish'd to b.ame.

In every heart (quoth he) since Adam's sin,
Two Founts there are, of suffering and of cheer!
That to let forth, and this to keep within!
But she, whose aspect I find imaged here,

Of Pleasure only will to all dispense,
That Fount alone unlock'd, by no distress
Choked or turn'd inward, but still issue thence
Unconquer'd cheer, persistent loveliness.

As on the driving cloud the shiny Bow,
That gracious thing made up of tears and light,
'Mid the wild rack and rain that slants below
Stands smiling forth, unmoved and freshly bright:

As though the spirits of all lovely flowers, Inweaving each its wreath and dewy crown, Or ere they sank to earth in vernal showers, Had built a bridge to tempt the angels down.

Even so, Eliza! on that face of thine,
On that benignant face, whose look alone

Her father's love she bade me gain;

I went and shook like any reed!

I strove to act the man-in vain!

We had exchanged our hearts indeed.

SONNET,

COMPOSED BY THE SEASIDE, OCTOBER 1817.
OH! it is pleasant, with a heart at ease,
Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,
To make the shifting clouds be what you please;
Or yield the easily persuaded eyes

To each quaint image issuing from the mould
Of a friend's fancy; or with head bent low,
And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold
"Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go

From mount to mount, through Cloudland, gorgeous
Jand!

(The soul's translucence through her crystal shrine !) Or listening to the tide, with closed sight,

Has power to soothe all anguish but thine own.

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Be that blind bard, who on the Chian strand,

By those deep sounds possess'd, with inward light Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssey

Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea!

EPIGRAMS. I.

I ASK'D my fair, one happy day,
What I should call her in my lay,

By what sweet name from Rome, or Greece,
Neæra, Laura, Daphne, Chloris,
Carina, Lalage, or Doris,
Dorimene, or Lucrece ?

II.

"Ah," replied my gentle fair; "Dear one, what are names but air?Choose thou whatever suits the line; Call me Laura, call me Chloris, Call me Lalage, or Doris, Only-only-call me thine!"

SLY Belzebub took all occasions
To try Job's constancy, and patience.
He took his honor, took his health;
He took his children, took his wealth,
His servants, oxen, horses, cows,-
But cunning Satan did not take his spouse.

But Heaven, that brings out good from evil,
And loves to disappoint the devil,
Had predetermined to restore
Twofold all he had before;

His servants, horses, oxen, cows-
Short-sighted devil, not to take his spouse!

THE EXCHANGE.

WE pledged our hearts, my love and I,

I in my arms the maiden clasping;

I could not tell the reason why,
But, oh! I trembled like an aspen.

HOARSE Mævius reads his hobbling verse
To all, and at all times:

And finds them both divinely smooth,
His voice as well as rhymes.

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BUT folks say Mævius is no ass;

But Mævius makes it clear
That he's a monster of an ass-
An ass without an ear!

THERE comes from old Avaro's grave
A deadly stench-why, sure, they have
Immured his soul within his Grave!

LAST Monday all the papers said,
That Mr.
was dead;

Why, then, what said the city?

The tenth part sadly shook their head,
And shaking sigh'd, and sighing said,
Pity, indeed, 'tis pity!"

But when the said report was found
A rumor wholly without ground,
Why, then, what said the city?
The other nine parts shook their head,
Repeating what the tenth had said,
Pity, indeed, 't is pity!"

YOUR poem must eternal be,
Dear Sir!-it cannot fail-

For 't is incomprehensible,
And wants both head and tail.

SWANS sing before they die-'t were no bad thing
Did certain persons die before they sing.

the "Fortunate Isles" of the Muses: and then other and more
momentous interests prompted a different voyage, to firmer an
chorage and a securer port. I have in vain tried to recover the
lines from the Palimpsest tablet of my memory: and I can only
offer the introductory stanza, which had been committed to
writing for the purpose of procuring a friend's judgment on
the metre, as a specimen.

Encinctured with a twine of leaves,
That leafy twine his only dress!
A lovely Boy was plucking fruits,
By moonlight, in a wilderness.

The moon was bright, the air was free,
And fruits and flowers together grew
On many a shrub and many a tree:
And all put on a gentle hue,
Hanging in the shadowy air
Like a picture rich and rare.

It was a climate where, they say,
The night is more beloved than day.
But who that beauteous Boy beguiled,
That beauteous Boy, to linger here?
Alone, by night, a little child,

In place so silent and so wild—

Has he no friend, no loving Mother near?

I have here given the birth, parentage, and premature decease of the "Wanderings of Cain, a poem,"-entreating, however, my Readers not to think so meanly of my judgment, as to suppose that I either regard or offer it as any excuse for the publication of the following fragment (and I may add, of one or two others in its neighborhood), or its primitive crudity. But I should find still greater difficulty in forgiving myself, were I to record pro tædio publico a set of petty mishaps and annoyances which I myself wish to forget. I must be content therefore with assuring the friendly Reader, that the less he attributes its appearance to the Author's will, choice, or judgment, the nearer to the truth be will be. S. T. C.

THE WANDERINGS OF CAIN.

PREFATORY NOTE.

A prose composition, one not in metre at least, seems prima

CANTO II.

"A LITTLE further, O my father, yet a little further, and we shall come into the open moonlight." Their road was through a forest of fir-trees; at its entrance the trees stood at distances from each other, and the facie to require explanation or apology. It was written in the path was broad, and the moonlight, and the moonlight year 1798, near Nether Stowey in Somersetshire, at which place shadows reposed upon it, and appeared quietly to insanctum et amabile nomen! rich by so many associations and habit that solitude. But soon the path winded and recollections) the Author had taken up his residence in order became narrow; the sun at high noon sometimes to enjoy the society and close neighborhood of a dear and hon-speckled, but never illumined it, and now it was ored friend, T. Poole. Esq. The work was to have been written in concert with another, whose name is too venerable within dark as a cavern. the precincts of genius to be unnecessarily brought into connexion with such a trifle, and who was then residing at a small distance from Nether Stowey. The title and subject were sug gested by myself, who likewise drew out the scheme and the contents for each of the three books or cantoes, of which the

work was to consist, and which, the reader is to be informed.

"It is dark, O my father!" said Enos; "but the path under our feet is smooth and soft, and we shall soon come out into the open moonlight."

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little child!" And the innocent little child clasped a Lead on, my child!" said Cain: "guide me. was to have been finished in one night! My partner undertook finger of the hand which had murdered the righteous the first canto: I the second: and whichever had done first, was Abel, and he guided his father. "The fir branches to set about the third. Almost thirty years have passed by; yet drip upon thee, my son." "Yea, pleasantly, father at this moment I cannot without something more than a smile for I ran fast and eagerly to bring thee the pitcher moot the question which of the two things was the more im- and the cake, and my body is not yet cool. How practicable, for a mind so eminently original to compose another man's thoughts and fancies, or for a taste so austerely pure and happy the squirrels are that feed on these fir-trees! simple to imitate the Death of Abel? Methinks I see his grand they leap from bough to bough, and the old squirrels and noble countenance as at the moment when having dispatch play round their young ones in the nest. I clomb a tree ed my own portion of the task at full finger-speed, I hastened yesterday at noon, O my father, that I might play ency fixed on his almost blank sheet of paper, and then its with them; but they leapt away from the branches, silent mock-piteous admission of failure struggling with the even to the slender twigs did they leap, and in a sense of the exceeding ridiculousness of the whole scheme-- moment I beheld them on another tree. Why, O my which broke up in a laugh: and the Ancient Mariner was writ- father, would they not play with me? I would b

to him with my manuscript-that look of humorous despond-1

ten instead.

Years afterward, however, the draft of the Plan and propo-good to them as thou art good to me: and I groaned sed Incidents, and the portion executed, obtained favor in the to them even as thou groanest when thou givest me eyes of more than one person, whose judgment on a poetic to cat, and when thou coverst me at evening, and as work could not but have weighed with me, even though no pa- often as I stand at thy knee and thine eyes look at rental partiality had been thrown into the same scale, as a me." Then Cain stopped, and stifling his groans he sank to the earth, and the child Enos stood in the

make-weight: and I determined on commencing anew, and

composing the whole in stanzas, and made some progress in realizing this intention, when adverse gales drove my bark off

darkness beside him.

And Cain lifted up his voice and cried bitterly, ed from its point, and between its point and the and said, "The Mighty One that persecuteth me is sands a tall man might stand upright. It was here on this side and on that; he pursueth my soul like that Enos had found the pitcher and cake, and to the wind, like the sand-blast he passeth through me; this place he led his father. But ere they had reachhe is around me even as the air! O that I might be ed the rock they beheld a human shape: his back utterly no more! I desire to die-yea, the things was towards them, and they were advancing unperthat never had life, neither move they upon the ceived, when they heard him smite his breast and earth-behold! they seem precious to mine eyes. O cry aloud, "Woe is me! woe is me! I must never die that a man might live without the breath of his nos- again, and yet I am perishing with thirst and huntrils! So I might abide in darkness, and blackness, ger." and an empty space! Yea, I would lie down, I would Pallid, as the reflection of the sheeted lightning on not rise, neither would I stir my limbs till I became the heavy-sailing night-cloud, became the face of as the rock in the den of the lion, on which the Cain; but the child Enos took hold of the shaggy young lion resteth his head whilst he sleepeth. For skin, his father's robe, and raised his eyes to his the torrent that roareth far off hath a voice, and the father, and listening whispered, "Ere yet I could clouds in heaven look terribly on me; the Mighty speak, I am sure, O my father! that I heard that One who is against me speaketh in the wind of the voice. Have not I often said that I remembered a .cedar grove; and in silence am I dried up." Then sweet voice? O my father! this is it:" and Cain Enos spake to his father: "Arise, my father, arise, trembled exceedingly. The voice was sweet indeed, we are but a little way from the place where I found but it was thin and querulous like that of a feeble the cake and the pitcher." And Cain said, "How knowest thou?" and the child answered-" Behold, the bare rocks are a few of thy strides distant from the forest; and while even now thou wert lifting up thy voice, I heard the echo." Then the child took hold of his father, as if he would raise him: and Cain being faint and feeble, rose slowly on his knees and pressed himself against the trunk of a fir, and stood upright, and followed the child.

The path was dark till within three strides' length of its termination, when it turned suddenly; the thick black trees formed a low arch, and the moonlight appeared for a moment like a dazzling portal. Enos ran before and stood in the open air; and when Cain, his father, emerged from the darkness, the child was affrighted. For the mighty limbs of Cain were wasted as by fire; his hair was as the matted curls on the Bison's forehead, and so glared his fierce and sullen eye beneath: and the black abundant locks on either side, a rank and tangled mass, were stained and scorched, as though the grasp of a burning iron hand had striven to rend them; and his countenance told in a strange and terrible language of agonies that had been, and were, and were still to continue to be.

slave in misery, who despairs altogether, yet cannot refrain himself from weeping and lamentation. And, behold! Enos glided forward, and creeping softly round the base of the rock, stood before the stranger, and looked up into his face. And the Shape shrieked, and turned round, and Cain beheld him, that his limbs and his face were those of his brother Abel whom he had killed! And Cain stood like one who struggles in his sleep because of the exceeding terribleness of a dream.

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Thus as he stood in silence and darkness of soul, the Shape fell at his feet, and embraced his knees, and cried out with a bitter outcry, "Thou eldestborn of Adam, whom Eve, my mother, brought forth, cease to torment me! I was feeding my flocks in green pastures by the side of quiet rivers, and thou killedst me; and now I am in misery." Then Cain closed his eyes, and hid them with his hands; and again he opened his eyes, and looked around him, and said to Enos, " What beholdest thou? Didst thou hear a voice, my son?" 'Yes, my father, I beheld a man in unclean garments, and he uttered a sweet voice, full of lamentation." Then Cain raised up the Shape that was like Abel, and said :-"The Creator of our father, who had respect unto thee, The scene around was desolate; as far as the eye and unto thy offering, wherefore hath he forsaken could reach it was desolate: the bare rocks faced thee?" Then the Shape shrieked a second time, and each other, and left a long and wide interval of thin rent his garment, and his naked skin was like the white sand. You might wander on and look round white sands beneath their feet; and he shrieked yet and round, and peep into the crevices of the rocks, a third time, and threw himself on his face upon the and discover nothing that acknowledged the influ- sand that was black with the shadow of the rock, ence of the seasons. There was no spring, no sum- and Cain and Enos sate beside him; the child by his mer, no autumn: and the winter's snow, that would right hand, and Cain by his left. They were all have been lovely, fell not on these hot rocks and three under the rock, and within the shadow. The scorching sands. Never morning lark had poised Shape that was like Abel raised himself up, and himself over this desert; but the huge serpent often spake to the child: "I know where the cold waters hissed there beneath the talons of the vulture, and are, but I may not drink; wherefore didst thou then the vulture screamed, his wings imprisoned within take away my pitcher?" But Cain said, "Didst thou the coils of the serpent. The pointed and shattered not find favor in the sight of the Lord thy God?" summits of the ridges of the rocks made a rude The Shape answered, "The Lord is God of the mimicry of human concerns, and seemed to proph- living only, the dead have another God." Then esy mutely of things that then were not; steeples, the child Enos lifted up his eyes and prayed; but and battlements, and ships with naked masts. As far Cain rejoiced secretly in his heart. Wretched shall from the wood as a boy might sling a pebble of the they be all the days of their mortal life," exclaimed brook, there was one rock by itself at a small dis- the Shape, "who sacrifice worthy and acceptable tance from the main ridge. It had been precipitated sacrifices to the God of the dead; but after death there perhaps by the groan which the Earth uttered their toil ceaseth. Woe is me, for I was well beloved when our first father fell. Before you approached, it by the God of the living, and cruel wert thou, O appeared to lie flat on the ground, but its base slant- my brother, who didst snatch me away from his

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power and his dominion." Having uttered these now unfelt, but never forgotten. It was at once the words, he rose suddenly, and fled over the sands; melancholy of hope and of resignation. We had not long been fellow-travellers, ere a sud

and Cain said in his heart, "The curse of the Lord

is on me; but who is the God of the dead?" and he den tempest of wind and rain forced us to seek proran after the Shape, and the Shape fled shrieking tection in the vaulted door-way of a lone chapelry: over the sands, and the sands rose like white mists and we sate face to face each on the stone bench behind the steps of Cain, but the feet of him that along-side the low, weather-stained wall, and as close was like Abel disturbed not the sands. He greatly as possible to the massy door.

outran Cain, and turning short, he wheeled round, After a pause of silence: Even thus, said he, like and came again to the rock where they had been two strangers that have fled to the same shelter from sitting, and where Enos still stood; and the child the same storm, not seldom do Despair and Hope caught hold of his garment as he passed by, and he meet for the first time in the porch of Death! All fell upon the ground. And Cain stopped, and be- extremes meet, I answered; but yours was a strange holding him not, said, "he has passed into the dark and visionary thought. The better then doth it bewoods," and he walked slowly back to the rocks; seem both the place and me, he replied. From a and when he reached it the child told him that he Visionary wilt thou hear a Vision? Mark that vivid had caught hold of his garment as he passed by, and flash through this torrent of rain! Fire and water. that the man had fallen upon the ground: and Cain Even here thy adage holds true, and its truth is the once more sate beside him, and said, “Abel. my bro-moral of my Vision. I entreated him to proceed. ther, I would lament for thee, but that the spirit Sloping his face towards the arch and yet averting within me is withered, and burnt up with extreme his eye from it, he seemed to seek and prepare his agony. Now, I pray thee, by thy flocks, and by thy words: till listening to the wind that echoed within pastures, and by the quiet rivers which thou lovedst, hollow edifice, and to the rain without, that thou tell me all that thou knowest. Who is the Which stole on his thoughts with its two-fold sound, God of the dead? where doth he make his dwelling?| The clash hard by and the murmur all round, what sacrifices are acceptable unto him? for I have he gradually sunk away, alike from me and from his offered, but have not been received; I have prayed, own purpose, and amid the gloom of the storm, and and have not been heard; and how can I be afflicted in the duskiness of that place, he sate like an emmore than I already am?" The Shape arose and answered, "O that thou hadst had pity on me as I will have pity on thee. Follow me, Son of Adam! and bring thy child with thee!"

the

blem on a rich man's sepulchre, or like a mourner on the sodded grave of an only one-an aged mourner, who is watching the waned moon and sorroweth not. Starting at length from his brief trance of abstracAnd they three passed over the white sands be- tion, with courtesy and an atoning smile he renewed tween the rocks, silent as the shadows.

ALLEGORIC VISION.

his discourse, and commenced his parable.

During one of those short furloughs from the service of the Body, which the Soul may sometimes obtain even in this, its militant state, I found myself in a vast plain, which I immediately knew to be the Valley of Life. It possessed an astonishing diversity of A FEELING of sadness, a peculiar melancholy, is soils: and here was a sunny spot, and there a dark wont to take possession of me alike in Spring and in one, forming just such a mixture of sunshine and Autumn. But in Spring it is the melancholy of shade, as we may have observed on the mountains' Hope in Autumn it is the melancholy of Resigna-side in an April day, when the thin broken clouds tion. As I was journeying on foot through the Apen- are scattered over heaven. Almost in the very enmine, I fell in with a pilgrim in whom the Spring and trance of the valley stood a large and gloomy pile, the Autumn and the Melancholy of both seemed to into which I seemed constrained to enter. Every have combined. In his discourse there were the part of the building was crowded with tawdry ornafreshness and the colors of April:

Qual ramicel a ramo,

Tal da pensier pensiero
In lui germogliava.

ments and fantastic deformity. On every window I was portrayed, in glaring and inelegant colors, some |horrible tale, or preternatural incident, so that not a ray of light could enter, untinged by the medium But as I gazed on his whole form and figure, I be- through which it passed. The body of the building thought me of the not unlovely decays, both of age was full of people, some of them dancing, in and and of the late season, in the stately elm, after the out, in unintelligible figures, with strange ceremonies clusters have been plucked from its entwining vines, and antic merriment, while others seemed convuised and the vines are as bands of dried withies around with horror, or pining in mad melancholy. Interits trunk and branches. Even so there was a memo- mingled with these, I observed a number of men, ry on his smooth and ample forehead, which blended clothed in ceremonial robes, who appeared, now to with the dedication of his steady eyes, that still marshal the various groups and to direct their move. looked-I know not, whether upward, or far onward, ments, and now, with menacing countenances, to or rather to the line of meeting where the sky rests drag some reluctant victim to a vast idol, framed of upon the distance. But how may I express that iron bars intercrossed, which formed at the same dimness of abstraction which lay on the lustre of the time an immense cage, and the shape of a human pilgrim's eyes, like the flitting tarnish from the breath Colossus.

of a sigh on a silver mirror! and which accorded I stood for a while lost in wonder what these things with their slow and reluctant movement, whenever might mean; when lo! one of the directors came up he turned them to any object on the right hand or on to me, and with a stern and reproachful look bade the left? It seemed, methought, as if there lay upon me uncover my head, for that the place into which I the brightness a shadowy presence of disappointments had entered was the temple of the only true Reli

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