On Life, Death, and Immortality.
5
The Land of Apparitions, empty Shades!
All, all on Earth is shadow, all beyond
Is Substance; the Reverse is Folly's Creed:
How solid all, where Change shall be no more?
This is the Bud of Being, the dim Dawn,
The Twilight of our Day, the Vestibule.
Life's Theatre as yet is shut, and Death.
Strong Death, alone can heave the massy Bar,
This gross Impediment of Clay remove,
And make us Embryos of Existence free.
From real Life, but little more remote
Is He, not yet a Candidate for Light,
The future Embryo, slumb'ring in his Sire.
Embryos we must be, till we burst the Shell,
Yon ambient azure Shell, and spring to Life,
The Life of Gods, O Transport! and of Man.
Yet Man, fool Man! here buries all his thoughts;
Inters celestial Hopes without one Sigh.
Pris'ner of Earth, and pent beneath the Moon,
Here pinions all his Wishes; wing'd by Heav'n
To fly at infinite; and reach it there,
Where Seraphs gather Immortality,
On Life's fair Tree, fast by the Throne of God.
What golden Joys ambrosial clust'ring glow,
In HIS full Beam, and ripen for the Just,
Where momentary Ages are no more!
Where Time, and Pain, and Chance, and Death, expire!
And is it in the Flight of threescore Years,
To push Eternity from human Thought,
And smother Souls immortal in the Dust?
A Soul immortal, spending all her Fires,
Wasting her Strength in strenuous Idleness,
Thrown into Tumult, raptur'd, or alarm'd,
At aught this Scene can threaten, or indulge,
All, all on Earth is shadow, all beyond
Is Substance; the Reverse is Folly's Creed:
How solid all, where Change shall be no more?
This is the Bud of Being, the dim Dawn,
The Twilight of our Day, the Vestibule.
Life's Theatre as yet is shut, and Death.
Strong Death, alone can heave the massy Bar,
This gross Impediment of Clay remove,
And make us Embryos of Existence free.
From real Life, but little more remote
Is He, not yet a Candidate for Light,
The future Embryo, slumb'ring in his Sire.
Embryos we must be, till we burst the Shell,
Yon ambient azure Shell, and spring to Life,
The Life of Gods, O Transport! and of Man.
Yet Man, fool Man! here buries all his thoughts;
Inters celestial Hopes without one Sigh.
Pris'ner of Earth, and pent beneath the Moon,
Here pinions all his Wishes; wing'd by Heav'n
To fly at infinite; and reach it there,
Where Seraphs gather Immortality,
On Life's fair Tree, fast by the Throne of God.
What golden Joys ambrosial clust'ring glow,
In HIS full Beam, and ripen for the Just,
Where momentary Ages are no more!
Where Time, and Pain, and Chance, and Death, expire!
And is it in the Flight of threescore Years,
To push Eternity from human Thought,
And smother Souls immortal in the Dust?
A Soul immortal, spending all her Fires,
Wasting her Strength in strenuous Idleness,
Thrown into Tumult, raptur'd, or alarm'd,
At aught this Scene can threaten, or indulge,
Resembles
