General information=
This is a poem by Isaac Watts, entitled A sight of heaven in sickness, published 1706.
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Text and translations
English text
1. Oft have I sat in secret sighs
To feel my flesh decay;
Then groaned aloud with frighted eyes,
To view the tottering clay.
2. But I forbid my sorrows now,
Nor dares the flesh complain;
Diseases bring their profits too,
The joy o'er-comes the pain.
3. My cheerful soul now all the day
Sits waiting here and sings;
Looks through the ruins of her clay,
And practices her wings.
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4. Faith almost changes into light,
While from afar she spies
Her fair inheritance in light
Above created skies.
5. Had but the prison-walls been strong
And firm, without a flaw,
In darkness she had dwelt too long
And less of glory saw.
6. But now the everlasting hills
Through every chink appear;
And something of the joy she feels
While she's a prisoner here.
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7. The shines of heaven run sweetly in
At all the gaping flaws;
Visions of endless bliss are seen,
And native air she draws.
8. O may these walls stand tottering still,
The breaches never close,
If I must here in darkness dwell,
And all this glory lose!
9. O rather let this flesh decay;
The ruins wider grow,
Till, glad to see the enlarged way,
I stretch my pinions through.
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