WHAT is Eternity? Can aught

Paint its duration to the thought?

Tell every beam the sun emits,

When in sublimest noon he sits;

Tell every light-winged mote that strays

Within its ample round of rays;

Tell all the leaves and all the buds

That crown the gardens, fields and woods;

Tell all the spires of grass the meads

Produce, when spring propitious leads

The new-born year.

Be this astonishing account

Augmented with the full amount

Of all the drops the clouds have shed,

Where’er their watery fleeces spread

Through all Time’s long-protracted tour.

Tell all the sands the ocean laves;

Tell all the changes of its waves,

Or tell, with more laborious pains,

The drops its mighty mass contains,

Were there a belt that could contain

In its vast orb the earth and main;

With figures were it clustered o’er,

And not one cipher in the score;

And could thy laboring thoughts assign

The total of the extended line:

How vast the amount, the attempt how vain,

To read duration’s endless chain;

For when as many years have run,

Eternity is but begun!

Through years eternal to remain,

And the love which bought it all for thee

When thou wert doomed no life to see;

And grace which to its boundless store

Adds endless blessings evermore:

And when thy cup of joy runs over,

Let songs of praise rise to the Giver.

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