I sunn'd my heart in beauty's eyes, II. I strive to number o'er what days Remembrance can discover, Which all that life or earth displays There rose no day, there roll'd no hour Of pleasure unembittered; And not a trapping deck'd my power That gall'd not while it glittered. N 2 III. The serpent of the field, by art It will not list to wisdom's lore, But there it stings for evermore WHEN COLDNESS WRAPS THIS SUFFER. ING CLAY. I. WHEN COLDNESS WRAPS THIS SUFFERING CLAY, Ah, whither strays the immortal mind? It cannot die, it cannot stay, But leaves its darken'd dust behind. Then, unembodied, doth it trace By steps each planet's heavenly way? Or fill at once the realms of space, A thing of eyes, that all survey? II. Eternal, boundless, undecay'd, In one broad glance the soul beholds, And all, that was, at once appears. III. Before Creation peopled earth, Its eye shall roll through chaos back; And where the furthest heaven had birth, The spirit trace its rising track. And where the future mars or makes, Its glance dilate o'er all to be, While sun is quench'd or system breaks, Fix'd in its own eternity. IV. Above or Love, Hope, Hate, or Fear, An It lives all passionless and pure: age shall fleet like earthly year; Its years as moments shall endure. Away, away, without a wing, O'er all, through all, its thought shall fly; A nameless and eternal thing, Forgetting what it was to die. |