Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts

MY LOVE IS LIKE TO ICE, AND I TO FIRE : Nature of Love which can alter others things' Nature .



Amoretti XXX (30)

BY EDMUND SPENSER

 

Stanza: -1   
My Love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?

 

Explanation: This is a love poem. In the very first line of the first stanza, the poet has presented a striking image of his beloved and himself with the help of a simile. He compares her with Ice and himself with burning fire. Both the matters have distinct features, which show that the couple is standing with some kind of differences between them. In the second line, the poet expresses his surprise at how can she be such a cold-hearted who is very irresponsive towards the poet’s love. On the contrary, she becomes harder as much as the poet shows his love to her. Poet finds him unable to turn her feelings in love despite his burning zeal for love.

 

Stanza: -2   


Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold?

 

Explanation: Here, in these lines poet tries to consider the fact that if he believes that she is not giving him love then why he himself cannot be hard towards her. Why is he unable to leave her and forget his love? On the other hand, as much as she ignores him is love becomes stronger rather than before. He says that his flames of love grow to manifold instead of becoming cold.

 

Stanza: -3   


What more miraculous thing may be told,
That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,
And ice, which is congeal’d with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device?

 

Explanation: In this stanza, the poet wants to gather the fact that is there anything that contains magical power to turn the nature of things, which is governing their mind and heart? In general, more powering heat can melt the Ice and more powering cold can congeal the fire. There is happing something unusual in which Ice becomes harder with fire and fire grows more with Ice.

Couplet: -4          


Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind.

 

Explanation: In this couplet, the poet finds his solution. He now understands that it is the power of his pure and noble love. He says love has such power, which can alter even the course of nature.  


Analysis 

 

The theme of this sonnet is explaining the power of love, which can cause alteration of feelings, emotions, and the natural course of life. This sonnet, therefore, has a very popular subject matter- the lover trying hard to immortalize the relationship. 

The poem is a sonnet grouped into three quatrains and a couplet. “Spencer splits his poem into four different sections, each section being a question “The lady in this sonnet is compared to ice whose feelings of coldness keep her disinterested towards the burning love of the speaker. She is a heartless, insensitive woman who is not ready to meltdown on the speaker's efforts and love. The speaker is thus shocked to notice such a type of behavior and wonders that his exceeding passions of love are responsible for the increasing indifference in the woman. The speaker surprisingly is hopeful that one day his burning passions of love will melt her down and she will understand his love and true feelings. Love sometimes seems unattainable but you do not truly know it is out of reach unless you try, Edmund Spenser portrays this message in his poem “My Love is Like to Ice.” 

This poem was taken out from his literary work the “Amoretti,” which was written as a part of the courtship of his second wife Elizabeth Boyle. This poem shows his struggle for love, knowing the intent of the poet’s reason for writing such beautiful poetry gives us the advantage when analyzing. Spenser uses two interesting elements to convey his feelings and emotions in reference to love to show us why love is mutual and should not be given up upon. Symbolism is seen throughout the poem very often with respect to human emotions and feelings. The nature of these two elements shows the reader that there is no such thing as impossible love. Spenser splits his poem into four different sections, each section being a question, which illustrates human emotions and feelings through different states of love. The first section carries its own tone and mood, set by the first line, “My love is like to ice, and I to fire,” Spenser chooses two elements that are incompatible and completely opposite from each other. The speaker in Spenser's sonnet 'My Love Is Like to Ice' is the mask the poet adopts, using an ancient rhetorical device. The poet and the speaker are not necessarily the same. You can consider it the perceiving consciousness if you prefer; the main thing is to avoid the confusion and misunderstanding that accompanies the error. Please remember that a poet like Spenser was always in complete control of his subject. He was not given to flights of fancy in any way whatsoever! 

 

The poem is a sonnet grouped into three quatrains and a couplet. The rhyme scheme of the first quatrain is such as:- 


ABAB/fire, great, desire, entreat
BCBC/heat, cold, sweat, manifold
CDCD/told, ice, cold, device
EE/mind, kind


The first line is a simile that compares his beloved - one to ice and the speaker to a fire that for some reason does not thaw his frozen love. The more he pursues her, the faster she flees (the colder she gets!). There is a 'law of contraries' being created here that defies natural law - those laws like gravity that operate on one and all in normal circumstances. Nevertheless, these are not normal times, the speaker alleges. This is a time for miracles in the realm of romance. We are in an unusual place where the usual laws do not apply. The couplet resolves the dilemma by sleight of language - the power of love can overrule natural love and change our very nature. 

A beautiful portrait of life-cycle presented by : William Shakespeare in his Poem "The Seven Ages Of Man".



Written by:  William Shakespeare in one of his play entitled “As You Like It

Shakespeare wrote his poem in the form of a monologue. Jacques’, one of the characters of this play speaks these lines in Act –II, scene - VII

Enjoy in audio

Poem 

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players,

They have their exits and entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

Then, the whining schoolboy with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice

In fair round belly, with good capon lin'd,

With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws, and modern instances,

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,

His youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wide,

For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,

Turning again towards childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

  • First, Age               an Infant
  • Second, Age          a School Boy
  • Third, Age             a Lover
  • Fourth, Age           a Justice
  • Fifth, Age              a Justice
  • Sixth, Age             Slippered Pantaloon
  • Seventh, Age-Old (Second Chillness)

Overview and Explanation

First Age: - Here poet tells that a person takes his entrance on life’s stage in the form of birth and plays his first role as a kid who keeps crying and vomiting all the time in his mother’s lap.

Second age: - He starts to play a role of a school-going boy whose image is shown with his satchel going to school unwillingly. However, his face looks brighter because of his innocent childishness that is completely free from any kind of selfishness, jealousy, ego, pride, and any other emotion like these. Until now, he is unaware of worldliness.

Third age: - here comes the description of teenage years where he plays the role of the lover. A lover misses his lover and sings sad songs and sometimes in praise of his beloved’s eyebrows. He feels anxious and annoying without her. He sighs like a furnace that can even alter the shape of hard iron. 

Fourth age: - at this age, he becomes an adult and behaves responsibly for his family and society like a soldier who becomes aware of his pride and place in society. He becomes aggressive towards his position in society. He wants to establish himself in a great place. Due to his eagerness in this, he starts feeling jealous of others. While performing his duties he forgets his daily grooming action like shaving etc and starts wearing beards and looks like a leopard. For his responsibilities and pride, he is ready to give his life in the name of his honour.

Fifth age: - this age comes with many life experiences. Here he tries to be an example for his next generations. He tries to wear decent clothes and savings. He tries to explain everything with suitable examples. Physically he becomes slightly fat and slow.

Sixth age: - this age comes with physical weakness, here he feels rather weak. His duties seem to him rather harder than earlier. He puts on loose-fitting clothes. Due to weak eyesight, he wears a spectacle, which comes slipping and stops at his nose. He generally sees with a pouch on his side for daily tasks. We can take it as if he has so many things to tell others. This age is mere oblivion of his early stories. He becomes so weak so he cannot travel a lot now. Now his voice also changes and becomes rather thin. Because of low stamina, low confidence.

Seventh age: - this is his last role on this stage of earth. We know it as second childishness because now he is now unable to perform his daily tasks. He is completely dependent on others like a kid who cannot do anything like eating, seeing, listening, and even taking bath. Here he loses every sense helpful to live a life. Like taste, vision, listening, touch, etc. 

Figures of Speech Used in the Poem

All the world is a stage

Metaphor

And all men and women are merely players

Metaphor

Seeking the bubble reputation

Simile

Sighing like furnace

Simile

Creeping like a snail

Simile

Shrunk shank

Alliteration

Plays his part

Metaphor

The Good-Morrow

 

The Good-Morrow

BY JOHN DONNE

Stanza - I

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?

But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?

’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

 

Lines start with first person pronoun, here poet expresses his surprise as to what he and his counterpart did earlier they fell in love. He regards their former pleasures as childish and rustic and their former life as a long sleep in which they were as oblivious to reality of life to expresses this he has used a reference to the Bible of Seven Sleepers who took refuse in a den due to fear of persecution. He thinks that their earlier lives were abstract and there was nothing real. Poet says his past love for old lovers was just a mere reflection of his present beloved.  

 

Troth                                              Truly      

Seven Sleepers                             The Seven Christians who took refuse in a cavern because of fear of persecution where they slept and woke up after two hundred years.

Stanza - II

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room an everywhere.

Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,

Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

 

Their life in old days was only an illusion. Now the state of dream is overcome and now there happens a new morning of new love. Now their souls have risen. They feel a new love. At this, time there no ground for doubts or jealousy. They are united now. They no longer wish to see other things. They are complete within one another. They want to explore a new world. Now they sought to encompass their life in different directions. Being united in love, they want to make whole world a single room.   

 

Stanza - III

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

Where can we find two better hemispheres,

Without sharp north, without declining west?

Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;

If our two loves be one, or, thou and I

Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die. 

 

In these lines, we see that the couple visualizes each other in their eyes respectively. They can feel honesty and simplicity in their looks. Their two different faces are like two different hemispheres, which together make a complete whole soul body. Now there remains no differences their love has become immortal. Now there in no fear of decay and death this is symbolized with the references of sharp north, and declining west.        

 

Source of (Poem): The Norton Anthology of Poetry Third Edition (1983)

John Donne

 John Donne

Brief Bios

Life

Poet was born in London, in 1572 in a Welshman’s family. By religion, he was a catholic. He studied law at Lincoln’s Inn. He often visited women of notoriety and in this way acquired that experience which makes him such a great love poet. He worked under Lord Edgerton as his secretary with whose niece, Anne More, he eloped and married her. Died on 1631, 31st March at the Deanery. In 1633, his First edition of Collected Poems published.

Major Works

  •  The Canonization
  •  The Extasie
  •  The Anniversary
  •  The Flea
  •  The Good Morrow
  • The Sunne Rising

 

The Extasie - What poet feels while making love.

Poem

A pregnant bank swell'd up to rest
The violet's reclining head,
Sat we two, one another's best.
Our hands were firmly cemented
With a fast balm, which thence did spring;
Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread
Our eyes upon one double string;
So to'intergraft our hands, as yet
Was all the means to make us one,
And pictures in our eyes to get
Was all our propagation.
As 'twixt two equal armies fate
Suspends uncertain victory,
Our souls (which to advance their state
Were gone out) hung 'twixt her and me.
And whilst our souls negotiate there,
We like sepulchral statues lay;
All day, the same our postures were,
And we said nothing, all the day.
If any, so by love refin'd
That he soul's language understood,
And by good love were grown all mind,
Within convenient distance stood,
He (though he knew not which soul spake,
Because both meant, both spake the same)
Might thence a new concoction take
And part far purer than he came.
This ecstasy doth unperplex,
We said, and tell us what we love;
We see by this it was not sex,
We see we saw not what did move;
But as all several souls contain
Mixture of things, they know not what,
Love these mix'd souls doth mix again
And makes both one, each this and that.
A single violet transplant,
The strength, the colour, and the size,
(All which before was poor and scant)
Redoubles still, and multiplies.
When love with one another so
Interinanimates two souls,
That abler soul, which thence doth flow,
Defects of loneliness controls.
We then, who are this new soul, know
Of what we are compos'd and made,
For th' atomies of which we grow
Are souls, whom no change can invade.
But oh alas, so long, so far,
Our bodies why do we forbear?
They'are ours, though they'are not we; we are
The intelligences, they the spheres.
We owe them thanks, because they thus
Did us, to us, at first convey,
Yielded their senses' force to us,
Nor are dross to us, but allay.
On man heaven's influence works not so,
But that it first imprints the air;
So soul into the soul may flow,
Though it to body first repair.
As our blood labors to beget
Spirits, as like souls as it can,
Because such fingers need to knit
That subtle knot which makes us man,
So must pure lovers' souls descend
T' affections, and to faculties,
Which sense may reach and apprehend,
Else a great prince in prison lies.
To'our bodies turn we then, that so
Weak men on love reveal'd may look;
Love's mysteries in souls do grow,
But yet the body is his book.
And if some lover, such as we,
Have heard this dialogue of one,
Let him still mark us, he shall see
Small change, when we'are to bodies gone.

Where, like a pillow on a be

BY JOHN DONNE

Total LINES: 76

Poems by John Donne are divided into two major categories (1) Secular Poems (Divine Poems) the following poem is derived from the collection of fifty-five lyrics named Songs and Sonnets (Secular Poems). First published by the poet’s son posthumously in 1633.

Here, in this metaphysical poet, John Donne has presented his imagination with the background of lovemaking scene. A couple who is indulged in looking in the eyes of the each other, while sitting at the riverbank, which was a high rose, like a pillow on a bed, as if to provide a place for rest to the reclining heads of violets. Their hands were firmly joined from which emitted a fragrant balm. Their eyes contacted and expressed the same emotions. Images reflected in their eyes were all the broadcast they did. As between two equally matched armies, fate might hold victory in the balance, so their souls held converse out of their bodies, they lay still and motionless like lifeless statues: all day they neither moved nor spoke. If any, so purified by the sincere and exalted love that he understood the language of souls, stood nearby, he might have had remixed the different elements that make up his soul, and depart for purer than he came. Their souls ascended to ecstasy: and it disclosed to them the mystery of love. They have realized that love is no sex experience- they saw what they did not see before that is what love is really a thing of souls not of the body. Souls contain various things of which they were not aware: love mingles two souls and unites them one – each of them becomes a compliment for another. A violet, if it is transplanted, develops in strength, color, and size. As when love joins two souls, they mingle with each other and give birth to a new and finer soul, which removes the pangs of incompleteness. The new reborn soul, made up of their two separate souls, made them know that we are made and compound of substances which grow and improve, which make us what we are, and which are not affected by changes. The bodies are ours, though we are distinct from the bodies. We are spiritual beings, and the bodies are the spheres within which they move. We are indebted to our bodies. They first brought them together and yielded the sense to us. The bodies are not impure matter, but an alloy. They are like metal, when mixed with gold, make it worthier to make jewels. When the souls work on bodies, it first permeates the air, so the soul can join another soul. Nevertheless, it is only through the medium of the body that one soul can contact another, a from our blood issue form spirits which acts as the instrument of the soul.

 

How does Edmund Spenser feel pangs of love?

Ice and Fire – Sonnet 30

Edmund Spenser

My Love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold?
What more miraculous thing may be told,
That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,
And ice, which is congeal’d with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device?
Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind.

Genre - Sonnet

Rhyme Scheme -  ab ab/bc bc/cd cd/ee

The Sonnet “ICE AND FIRE” (Number Thirtieth) is taken out from the collection named Amoretti (a collection of 89 sonnets by Edmund Spenser addressed to Elizabeth Boyle). The poem follows the tradition of the Elizabethan Age. Poet has used full of far-fetched turns of thoughts aimed at showing the sad plight of a devoted lover. The lover finds his beloved coldhearted. He calls her heart frozen. The lover describes himself as he is burning and feeling his flames augmented.

|| Analysis ||

The theme of this sonnet is the power of love, which can cause alteration of feelings, emotion, and the natural course of life. This sonnet, therefore, has a very popular subject matter- the lover trying hard to immortalize the relationship. The poem is a sonnet grouped into three quatrains and a couplet. “Spencer splits his poem into four different sections, each section being a question”. The woman in this sonnet is compared to ice whose feelings of coldness keeps her disinterested towards the burning love of the speaker. She is a heartless, insensitive woman who is not ready to meltdown on the speaker's efforts and love. The speaker is thus shocked to notice such a type of behaviour and wonders that his exceeding passions of love are responsible for the increasing indifference in the woman. The speaker surprisingly is hopeful that one day his burning passions of love will melt her down and she will understand his love and true feelings.  Love sometimes seems unattainable but you do not truly know it is out of reach unless you try, Edmund Spenser portrays this message in his poem “My Love is Like to Ice.” This poem was taken out from his literary work the “Amoretti,” which was written as a part of the courtship of his second wife Elizabeth Boyle. This poem can be seen as his struggle for love, knowing the intent of the poet’s reason for writing such beautiful poetry gives us the advantage when analyzing. Spenser uses two interesting elements to convey his feelings and emotions in reference to love to show us why love is mutual and should not be given up just. Symbolism is seen throughout the poem very often with respect to human emotions and feelings. The nature of these two elements shows the reader that there is no such thing as impossible love. Spenser splits his poem into four different sections, each section being a question, which illustrates human emotions and feelings through different states of love. The first section carries its own tone and mood, set by the first line, “My love is like to ice, and I to fire,” Spenser chooses two elements that are incompatible and completely opposite from each other. The speaker in Spenser's sonnet 'My Love Is Like to Ice' is the mask the poet adopts, using an ancient rhetorical device. The poet and the speaker (or persona, which literally means 'mask') are not necessarily the same. You can consider it the perceiving consciousness if you prefer; the main thing is to avoid the confusion and misunderstanding that accompanies the error.

The rhyme scheme of the first quatrain is ABAB/fire, great, desire, entreat; the second is BCBC / heat, cold, sweat, manifold; the third rhymes CDCD / told, ice, cold, device; and the couplet rhymes EE/mind, kind. The rhyme includes near rhyme in great - entreat and heat - sweat. Keep in mind that in Spenser's day, poetry was considered a rhetorical game more often than not.

The first line is a simile that compares his beloved - one to ice and the speaker to a fire that for some reason does not thaw his frozen love. The more he pursues her, the faster she flees (the colder she gets!). There is a 'law of contraries' being created here that defies natural law - those laws like gravity that operate on one and all in normal circumstances. Nevertheless, these are not normal times, the speaker alleges. This is a time for miracles in the realm of romance. We are in a foreign place where the usual laws do not apply.  The couplet resolves the dilemma by sleight of language - the power of love can overrule natural love and change our very nature. Our 'kind' (humankind) can be changed to its very core. 

Emily Bronte's (1818-1848) life in a quick view.

 Emily’s father, Patrick Bronte, was an Irishman. He was priest of the Church of England. Her 
mother Maria Branwell was Cornish. Her mother died in September 1821. On 19 December 1848, Emily Died at Age of 30. Her Sister Charlotte found a manuscript copy of some verses written by Emily. Then another sister Anne shyly produced some poems. After that, they composed a collection and published it under the title of “Poems” though they published it under pseudonyms – Currer Bell, Ellis Bell and Acton Bell. Her literary output was very merge. She composed some poetry, she wrote just one novel. Wuthering Heights (1847)

S. T. Coleridge

Biography

He was born on October 21, 1772 in Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire. His father, John Coleridge was Schoolmaster cum Parson. At the age of eight-he left, his home after a quarrel with his brother and spent the night on the Bank of a stream. Since early childhood, he was highly imaginative and interested in reading. He had read The Bible before he was five.

After his father Death in 1781, he was sent to Christ’s Hospital, where he remained until 1782. He found escape in books. He read Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare and many more. He also studied medicine and metaphysics. His first love was Mary Evans who was a sister of one of his friends.

In 1791, he joined Jesus College, Cambridge as charity student.  For a time he found himself in debt. To flee from his troubles, he went to London in 1793. Coleridge left Cambridge in 1794 without completing his degree. Later Coleridge married Sarah Fricker, the sister of Robert Southey’s Fiancee.

Chronology

  •  1772 – S.T. Coleridge born October 21
  •  1781  - His father died
  •  1782 – he was sent to Christ’s Hospital London
  •  1791 – He left Christ’s Hospital and joined Jesus College Cambridge.
  •  1795 – Married to Sarah Fricker
  •  1797 – Begun writing The Ancient Mariner from Nov.13 
  •  1800 – The second edition of Lyrical Ballads published with Preface by Wordsworth.
  •  1804 – He decided to leave his wife.
  •  1816 – Christabel and Kubla Khan published.
  •  1817- Biographia Literaria published.
  •  1825 – Aids to Reflection in the Formation of a Manly Character published.
  •  1830 – On the Constitution of Church and State published. 
  •  1834 - he died on 25th  July at Highgate, London.

Ozymandies - Critical Point of View

                                     I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Source: Shelley’s Poetry and Prose (1977)

Ozymandias exemplifies the conceit of human greatness and the failure of all efforts to immortalize his grandeur. Ozymandias was a great Egyptian king, a life like statue of whom was made to immortalize his memories. Now the Statue seen half-buried and broken, and all around it there is seen a stretch of barren desert.

The poet relates an experience of a traveler from Egypt. The traveler saw a statue in the desert with two huge and trunk less legs, near them lay, half buried, the broken face of the statue. On this face of the statue can still be seen the expression of haughtiness and a sense of authority which had artfully been depicted by the sculptor. On the pedestal, the following words were inscribed: “My name is Ozymandias and I am a great king. Look at great deeds which I have accomplished and which nobody can equal.”

This is a sonnet. It does not strictly follow the accepted conventions of the form of the sonnet. The rhyme scheme does not follow any of the recognized pattern and even some of the rhymes are faulty.

It is one of the best written by Shelley. It has earned high praise from critics and they   considered it powerful, imaginative and instructive composition. Its moral goes home to our hearts powerfully. Human glory and pomp are mortal. Hammers of decay quickly follow the hammers of construction. Times goes havoc with buildings and monuments. However, the moral is not stated. The poet only presents a picture to human mind and we have ourselves to draw the moral. It is a didactic poem, but its moral is not thrust upon us directly Shelley said that didacticism was his abhorrence and he did not preach moral lessons.

The mood of the poem is melancholic because it makes us think over the vanity of human desires and their failures to keep their memories alive. The contrast between the past glory of the king and the present condition of the statue is very striking to the mind and emphasis the moral of the poem. The final lines of the poem are remarkable for the suggestiveness. The poem contains two striking scenes. One is the picture of the broken statue, a huge wreck, the face of which still wears a frown and the sneer of cold command, another is the scene of the lone, and level desert, boundless and bare, stretching far away.


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