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We see things not as they are but as we are.
We see things not as they are but as we are.
 Then purg'd with euphrasy and rue
 The visual nerve, for he had much to see.  
 Then purg'd with euphrasy and rue
 The visual nerve, for he had much to see. 
 Two men look out through the same bars:
 One sees the mud, and one the stars.  
 Two men look out through the same bars:
 One sees the mud, and one the stars. 
 And finds with keen, discriminating sight,
 Black's not so black--nor white so very white.  
 And finds with keen, discriminating sight,
 Black's not so black--nor white so very white. 
 For sight is woman-like and shuns the old.
 (Ah! he can see enough, when years are told,
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 For sight is woman-like and shuns the old.
 (Ah! he can see enough, when years are told,
  Who backwards looks.) 
 If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into 
you.  
 If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into 
you. 
 And every eye
 Gaz'd as before some brother of the sky.  
 And every eye
 Gaz'd as before some brother of the sky. 
 A monster frightful, formless, immense, with sight removed.
 [Lat., Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum.]  
 A monster frightful, formless, immense, with sight removed.
 [Lat., Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum.] 
 He that had neither beene kithe nor kin,
 Might have seene a full fayre sight.
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 He that had neither beene kithe nor kin,
 Might have seene a full fayre sight.
   - Thomas Percy,