'Why, if man rot in dreamless ease, Should that plain fact, as taught by these, Not make him sure that he shall cease? 'Who forged that other influence, That heat of inward evidence, By which he doubts against the sense? 'He owns the fatal gift of eyes, That read his spirit blindly wise, Not simple as a thing that dies. 'Here sits he shaping wings to fly: His heart forebodes a mystery: He names the name Eternity. 'That type of Perfect in his mind In Nature can he nowhere find. He sows himself in every wind. 'He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend, And thro' thick veils to apprehend A labour working to an end. 'The end and the beginning vex His reason: many things perplex, With motions, checks, and counterchecks. 'He knows a baseness in his blood At such strange war with something good, He may not do the thing he would. 'Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn. Vast images in glimmering dawn, Half shown, are broken and withdrawn. 'Ah! sure within him and without, Could his dark wisdom find it out, There must be answer to his doubt.

Death·Literature·Philosophy·Eternity