" Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting." "Wordsworth.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 211, 16 July 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

" Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting." "Wordsworth.

Soul! Thou bright and qucnehle c s spark. Diamond of t>«is nether dark, Riddle of all history. Kiddle through all time to be, t-ay. whence cam'st thou ? Wcrt thou born When the naked babe, iorlorn, Bi caking from the iinp>isoningwoinb, Sought this world of light and gloom ( Wcrt thou then »n form and feature Fashioned an immoralr al creature? Or art thou the waif— the stray Of the ages swept away; Running, erst, untiring race O'er the boundless plains of space ; Revelling in uncloying newness, Fleet as fancy and as viewless ; Sometime down the Milky Way Where our sun scar, c shoots a ray ; Sometime urged m wild career Past the constellated Bear, # Down where worlds in dread collision Met thy bold and reckless vision, O'er the rack of systems flying, Tameless, restless and undying? Win nee I came or whither bound, Hidden is in the night profound ; For, since first my wings were set Fast in Time's entangling nft, Memoi y hath darkly slumbered With these heavy cords encumbered. But, in visions still, I see Gleams of that Immensity "Whence I came, nnd whither tend All my footsteps to the end— Gleams that from the maze of Doubt Guide my wearied footsteps out ; Till, once more, the Star of Faith, Shining o'er the gates of Death, Bids me of this truth be Bure : I, created, ahull endure. Death this lump of clay may shiver. Yet my light Bhall burn for ever.