When we for age could neither read nor write, <br />The subject made us able to indite. <br />The soul, with nobler resolutions deckt, <br />The body stooping, does herself erect: <br />No mortal parts are requisite to raise <br />Her, that unbodied can her Maker praise. <br /> <br />The seas are quiet, when the winds give o'er, <br />So calm are we, when passions are no more: <br />For then we know how vain it was to boast <br />Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost. <br />Clouds of affection from our younger eyes <br />Conceal that emptiness, which age descries. <br /> <br />The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd, <br />Lets in new light through chinks that time has made; <br />Stronger by weakness, wiser men become <br />As they draw near to their eternal home: <br />Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view, <br />That stand upon the threshold of the new.<br /><br />Edmund Waller<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/of-the-last-verses-in-the-book/
