When Coldness Wraps This Suffering Clay

When coldness wraps this suffering clay
Ah! Whither strays the immortal mind?
It cannot die, it cannot stay
But leaves it's darken'd dust behind
Then, unembodied, doth it trace
By steps each planet's heavenly way?
Or fill at once the realms of space
A thing of eyes, that all survey?

Eternal, boundless, undecay'd
A thought unseen, but seeing all
All, all in earth, or skies display'd
Shall it survey, shall it recall!
Each fainter trace that memory holds
So darkly of departed years
In one broad glance the soul beholds
And all, that was, at once appears

Before creation peopled earth
Its eye shall roll through chaos back;
And where the furthest heaven had birth
The spirit trace its rising track
And where the future mars or makes
Its glance dilate o'er all to be
While sun is quench'd or system breaks
Fix'd in its own eternity

Above or love, hope, hate, or fear
It lives all passionless and pure
An age shall fleet like earthly years;
Its years as moments shall endure

Away, away, without a wing
O'er all, through all, its thought shall fly;
A nameless and eternal thing
Forgetting what it was to die