When coldness wraps this suffering clay, <br />Ah! whither strays the immortal mind? <br />It cannot die, it cannot stay, <br />But leaves its darken'd dust behind. <br />Then, unembodied, doth it trace <br />By steps each planet's heavenly way? <br />Or fill at once the realms of space, <br />A thing of eyes, that all survey? <br /> <br />Eternal, boundless, undecay'd, <br />A thought unseen, but seeing all, <br />All, all in earth or skies display'd, <br />Shall it survey, shall it recall: <br />Each fainter trace that memory holds <br />So darkly of departed years, <br />In one broad glance the soul beholds, <br />And all, that was, at once appears. <br /> <br />Before Creation peopled earth, <br />Its eye shall roll through chaos back; <br />And where the farthest heaven had birth, <br />The spirit trace its rising track. <br />And where the future mars or makes, <br />Its glance dilate o'er all to be, <br />While sun is quench'd or system breaks, <br />Fix'd in its own eternity. <br /> <br />Above or Love, Hope, Hate, or Fear, <br />It lives all passionless and pure: <br />An age shall fleet like earthly year; <br />Its years as moments shall endure. <br />Away, away, without a wing, <br />O'er all, through all, its thought shall fly, <br />A nameless and eternal thing, <br />Forgetting what it was to die.<br /><br />George Gordon Byron<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/when-coldness-wraps-this-suffering-clay-2/
