1
- When coldness wraps this suffering clay,
- Ah! whither strays the immortal mind?
- It cannot die, it cannot stay,
- But leaves its darkend dust behind.
- Then, unembodied, doth it trace
- By steps each planets heavenly way?
- Or fill at once the realms of space,
- A thing of eyes, that all survey?
2
- Eternal, boundless, undecayd,
- A thought unseen, but seeing all,
- All, all in earth or skies displayd,
- Shall it survey, shall it recall:
- Each fainter trace that memory holds
- So darkly of departed years,
- In one broad glance the soul beholds,
- And all, that was, at once appears.
3
- Before Creation peopled earth,
- Its eye shall roll through chaos back;
- And where the farthest heaven had birth,
- The spirit trace its rising track.
- And where the future mars or makes,
- Its glance dilate oer all to be,
- While sun is quenchd or system breaks,
- Fixd in its own eternity.
4
- Above or Love, Hope, Hate, or Fear,
- It lives all passionless and pure:
- An age shall fleet like earthly year;
- Its years as moments shall endure.
- Away, away, without a wing,
- Oer all, through all, its thoughts shall fly;
- A nameless and eternal thing,
- Forgetting what it was to die.
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