Classic Poem

Ah! make the most of what you yet may spend,
Before we, too, into the dust descend.
When you and I behind the veil are past,
Oh! but the long, long, while the world shall last!

But if the soul can fling the dust aside,
And naked, on the air of heaven ride,
Wert not a shame for him in
This clay-crippled carcase to abide?

I sent my soul to the invisible
Some secret of the after life to spell,
And bye and bye my soul returned to me
And answered — I, myself — am Heaven and Hell!

Heaven but the vision of fulfilled desire
And Hell the shadow from a soul on fire
Cast on the darkness, into which ourselves
So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.