 English text
Here, amid the climes diurnal,
Just before the veil I wait,
Soon to hear the voice Supernal
Sounding through the vaults of Fate
Soon, sweet Hope, immortal youth,
Leaping from the shrine of Truth,-
Woo each warm anticipation
O'er the portals of sensation.
Did Jehovah but design me
For a moment's dream of time?
To these perishing joys confine me,
Barred from yon eternal clime?
Is this musing mind a breath.
Lost in all—victorious death,
Frail as dust and vapor flying,
When these mortal powers are dying?
Soon this frame will be a plunder,
Crumbling for the worms below;
Must I, as it sinks asunder.
All to moldering darkness go?
All of conscious life bereft.
At my utmost limit left,
Boru to quench each warm sensation,
Deep in drear annihilation?
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Is not life a path allowed me,
Up to life beyond the sky?
Why hath God with thought endow 'd me,
If the powers of thought must die?
Happy, were I made to be,
Like the brute from reason free.
Gay amid the seasons o'er me,
Heedless of the doom before me.
No; — reviler! scorn and error
Ne'er shall steal my trust away;
Rescued, raised from mortal terror,
1 shall triumph o'er decay.
No; — my soul is not a breath,
Not the passive prey of death :
From my Maker I enjoy it,
Storms of Fate shall not destroy it.
Spirit! — that's my name imperial.
Clay is but a cumbrous pall.
But the seed of life ethereal.
Slumbering for the trumpet's call.
As the glad maternal earth
Warms the genial seed to birth,
So this frame to dust descending,
Shrines the germ of life unending.
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Not for momentary being.
Cursed with consciousness in vain;
Not for joys forever fleeing;
Not for throbs of guilt and pain,
Harmonized her powers for this,
Winged each Godlike aspiration
O'er the bourne of desolation.
This warm thirst for life eternal,
This impatience here to stay,
Longing for a home Supernal,
Blissful Regions far away,
These, bright world, my tokens be,
Tokens that I rise to thee.
Burst the coils I strive to sever.
Wing me there, and live forever.
Deep remorse for deeds unholy!
Sweet repose the righteous know!
Joys, that cheer the meek and lowly!
Stealing down unseen below!
Vouch ye, too, this truth to me.
When the shades of Death I see,
When these limbs to worms are given,
I shall rise, and soar to heaven.
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I shall live, live on forever!
Immortality is sure!
Lo! I strive these bonds to sever,
Bursting from a dream impure.
Let me then, to Virtue true,
Silently her path pursue,
Moving firm, with glad persistence,
Living here for yon existence.
Let thy mercy. Lord, restore me.
When my feeble feet may roam;
Keep the joyous thought before me,
"Yonder is my native home;
Void of sorrow, void of pain,
There delights and glories reign,
There, before the throne suspended,
Wreath and crown of perils ended."
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