When Coldness Wraps This Suffering Clay

When coldness wraps this suffering clay,

Ah! Whither strays the immortal mind?

It cannot die, it cannot stay

But leaves it's 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?

Eternal, boundless, undecay'd,

A thought unseen, but seeing all,

All, all in earth, or skies display'd,

Shall it survey, shall it recall!

Each fainter trace that memory holds,

So darkly of departed years

In one broad glance the soul beholds,

And all, that was, at once appears.

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

Above or love, hope, hate, or fear

It lives all passionless and pure

An age shall fleet like earthly years;

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