CANTO:
To be freed from that joy terrestrial,
To supernal joy, or turned from fire to fire.
Or haply our immortal souls, that, lost
In some unmeasured immensity,
Froze to our earthly nature in the frost
Of death itself, from whence we are awaked
Into immortal fire by the last spark
Of human nature, which the world is left
To the world’s ills;
Alas, when shall thine own blessed soul
Be free from the bondage of terrestrial joy
To a supernal joy! how should it rejoice
If from a heavenward eye 't were measured, with
The sun’s, the moon’s, the heavenly motions
And all those lights that rule and govern us!
No, it shall still be bound by Time and place;
Bound by those starry skies; by the dark
And quiet oracles of heaven; by the
Flaming and flashing of this earth; by
Our own deeds done, and thoughts and purposes;
In this world by the things that we behold,
In the world to come by God’s infinite
And unsearchable love! O Time
If not in thee, yet dost thou move, and fill
All places, all, even at her utmost verge
Whose centre is the centre of the world!
Alike thou hast a motion in thy sphere,
Thou travellest slow, and swift, yet still dost move,
And the swift air hath a motion in the earth
As still to make thy swiftness swiftness nought.
The earth whose face and highest pinnacle
Is set on fire, that doth move from one
Flame to another, fire to fire
Turned, as the soul’s gambit from God to God.
Alike a soul from God doth pass and change;
Alike thou still goest from good to good.
For every good is a good to thee,
Even though thou hast not found it here.
Thou dost no whit forget thy former state;
Thy state in thy creation, as thy state
In thy salvation, is one not severed.
From the first state of innocence, thou passest,
From the first bliss, into the second blest,
Incomparably happier than before.
Time will come when all time hath run away,
And Time’s the only truth. So the same hour,
So the same day, is the day at its height
And the day at its height is Eternity!