Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of eternity.

Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of eternity.

This speck of life in time's great wilderness
This narrow isthmus 'twixt two boundless seas,
The past, read more

This speck of life in time's great wilderness
This narrow isthmus 'twixt two boundless seas,
The past, the future, two eternities!

I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss from her mouth, one touch of her hand, read more

I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss from her mouth, one touch of her hand, than eternity without it.

Then gazing up 'mid the dim pillars high,
The foliaged marble forest where ye lie,
Hush, ye read more

Then gazing up 'mid the dim pillars high,
The foliaged marble forest where ye lie,
Hush, ye will say, it is eternity!
This is the glimmering verge of heaven, and there
The columns of the heavenly palaces.

With our short sight we affect to take a comprehensive view of eternity. Our horizon is the universe.

With our short sight we affect to take a comprehensive view of eternity. Our horizon is the universe.

If we consider eternity, into that time never entered; eternity
is not an everlasting flux of time, but time read more

If we consider eternity, into that time never entered; eternity
is not an everlasting flux of time, but time is as a short
parenthesis in a long period; and eternity had been the same as
it is, though time had never been.

Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise
Up between two eternities!

Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise
Up between two eternities!

Those spacious regions where our fancies roam,
Pain'd by the past, expecting ills to come,
In some read more

Those spacious regions where our fancies roam,
Pain'd by the past, expecting ills to come,
In some dread moment. by the fates assign'd,
Shall pass away, nor leave a rack behind;
And Time's revolving wheels shall lose at last
The speed that spins the future and the past:
And, sovereign of an undisputed throne,
Awful eternity shall reign alone.

The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity.

The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity.