Part 4 — MIMNERMUS IN CHURCH
Reading edition
You promise heavens free from strife, Pure truth, and perfect change of will; But sweet, sweet is this human life, So sweet, I fain would breathe it still: Your chilly stars I can forego, This warm kind world is all I know.
You say there is no substance here, One great reality above: Back from that void I shrink in fear, And child-like hide myself in love: Show me what angels feel. Till then I cling, a mere weak man, to men.
You bid me lift my mean desires From faltering lips and fitful veins To sexless souls, ideal choirs, Unwearied voices, wordless strains: My mind with fonder welcome owns One dear dead friend's remembered tones.
Forsooth the present we must give To that which cannot pass away; All beauteous things for which we live By laws of time and space decay. But oh, the very reason why I clasp them, is because they die.
William Johnson-Cory [1823-1892]