TWO souls move here, and mine, a third, must move | |
| Paces of admiration and of love. | |
| Thy soul, dear virgin, whose this tribute is, | |
| Moved from this mortal sphere to lively bliss; | |
| And yet moves still, and still aspires to see | 5 |
| The world’s last day, thy glory’s full degree, | |
| Like as those stars which thou o’erlookest far, | |
| Are in their place, and yet still movèd are. | |
| No soul—whiles with the luggage of this clay | |
| It clogged is—can follow thee half-way; | 10 |
| Or see thy flight, which doth our thoughts outgo | |
| So fast, as now the lightning moves but slow. | |
| But now thou art as high in heaven flown | |
| As heavens from us, what soul besides thine own | |
| Can tell thy joys, or say he can relate | 15 |
| Thy glorious journals in that blessed state? | |
| I envy thee, rich soul, I envy thee, | |
| Although I cannot yet thy glory see. | |
| And thou, great spirit, which hers followed hast | |
| So fast, as none can follow thine so fast; | 20 |
| So far, as none can follow thine so far | |
| —And if this flesh did not the passage bar, | |
| Hadst caught her—let me wonder at thy flight, | |
| Which long agone hadst lost the vulgar sight, | |
| And now makest proud the better eyes, that they | 25 |
| Can see thee lessened in thine airy way. | |
| So while thou makest her soul by progress known, | |
| Thou makest a noble progress of thine own, | |
| From this world’s carcase having mounted high | |
| To that pure life of immortality; | 30 |
| Since thine aspiring thoughts themselves so raise | |
| That more may not beseem a creature’s praise, | |
| Yet still thou vow’st her more, and every year | |
| Makest a new progress, while 1 thou wanderest here, | |
| Still upward mount; and let thy Maker’s praise | 35 |
| Honour thy Laura, and adorn thy lays. | |
| And since thy Muse her head in heaven shrouds, | |
| Oh, let her never stoop below the clouds; | |
| And if those glorious sainted souls may know | |
| Or what we do, or what we sing below, | 40 |
| Those acts, those songs shall still content them best | |
| Which praise those awful Powers that make them blest. [JOSEPH HALL] | |
