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Ellen Sturgis Hooper

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I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke, and found that life was Duty.
Was thy dream then a shadowy lie?
Toil on, poor heart, unceasingly;
And thou shalt find thy dream to be
A truth and noonday light to thee.
--
Life a Duty, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Straight is the line of Duty, / Curved is the line of Beauty, / Follow the straight line, thou hall see / The curved line ever follow thee", William Maccall (c. 1830).

 
Ellen Sturgis Hooper

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Thy duty do? rejoined the voice,
Ah, do it, do it, and rejoice;
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Like these, that may be seen and won
In life, whose course will then be run;
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I know not, I will do my duty.

 
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