Page:The Bible of Nature, and Substance of Virtue.djvu/23

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Thus all things are but altcr'd, nothing dies ;

And here and there th'unbodied spirit flies,

By time, or force, or sickness dispossest,

And lodges, where it lights, in man or beast ;

Or hunts without, till ready limbs it find,

And actuates those according to their kind ;

From tenement to tenement is tost.

The soul is still the same, the figure only lost :

And as the soften'd wax new seals receives.

This face assumes, and that impression leaves ;

Now call'd by one, now by another name ;

The form is only chang'd, the wax is still the same ;

So Death, so call'd, can but the form deface ;

Th' immortal soul flies out in empty space.

To seek her fortune in some other place.

This let me further add, that Nature knows

No stedfast station, but, or ebbs or flows;

Ever in motion; she destroys her old,

And casts new figures in another mould.

E'en times are in perpetual flux, and run,

Like rivers from their fountain, rolling on.

For time, no more than streams, is at a stay;

The flying hour is ever on her way:

And as the fountain still supplies her store,

The wave behind impels the wave before;

Thus in successive course the minutes run.

And urge their predecessor minutes on,

Still moving, ever new : For, former things

Are set aside, like abdicated kings;

And ev'ry moment alters what is done,

And innovates some act till then unknown.

E'en our own bodies daily change receive,

Some part of what was theirs before, they leave;

Nor are to-day what yesterday they were;

Nor the whole same to morrow will appear.

Time was when we were sow'd, and just began,

From some few fruitful drops, the promise of a man:

Then Nature's hand (fermented as it was)

Moulded to shape the soft, coagulated mass;

And when the little man was fully form'd,

The breathless embryo with a spirit warm'd;