Life! I know not what thou art,
   But know that thou and I must part;
   And when, or how, or where we met,
   I own to me’s a secret yet.
   But this I know, when thou art fled,
   Where’er they lay these limbs, this head,
   No clod so valueless shall be,
   As all that then remains of me.
   O whither, whither dost thou fly,
   Where bend unseen thy trackless course,
      And in this strange divorce,
Ah tell where I must seek this compound I?

To the vast ocean of empyreal flame,
      From whence thy essence came,
      Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed
      From matter’s base encumbering weed?
         Or dost thou, hid from sight,
         Wait, like some spell-bound knight,
Through blank oblivious years th’ appointed hour,
To break thy trance and reassume thy power?
Yet canst thou without thought or feeling be?
O say what art thou, when no more thou ’rt thee?

      Life! we’ve been long together,
      Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
         ’Tis hard to part when friends are dear;
         Perhaps ’t will cost a sigh, a tear;
         Then steal away, give little warning,
            Choose thine own time;
      Say not Good night, but in some brighter clime
            Bid me Good morning.

What is a mine—a treasury—a dower—
A magic talisman of mighty power?
A poet's wide possession of the earth.
He has th' enjoyment of a flower's birth
Before its budding—ere the first red streaks,—
And Winter cannot rob him of their cheeks.

Look—if his dawn be not as other men's!
Twenty bright flushes—ere another kens
The first of sunlight is abroad—he sees
Its golden 'lection of the topmost trees,
And opes the splendid fissures of the morn.

When do his fruits delay, when doth his corn
Linger for harvesting? Before the leaf
Is commonly abroad, in his piled sheaf
The flagging poppies lose their ancient flame.
No sweet there is, no pleasure I can name,
But he will sip it first—before the lees.
'Tis his to taste rich honey,—ere the bees
Are busy with the brooms. He may forestall
June's rosy advent for his coronal;
Before th' expectant buds upon the bough,
Twining his thoughts to bloom upon his brow.

Oh! blest to see the flower in its seed,
Before its leafy presence; for indeed
Leaves are but wings on which the summer flies,
And each thing perishable fades and dies,
Escap'd in thought; but his rich thinkings be
Like overflows of immortality:
So that what there is steep'd shall perish never,
But live and bloom, and be a joy forever.