Yea; it is the poetry of Death, an Orpheus gladdening Hadës, To care with mindful love for all so dear--and dead; To think of them in hope, to look for them in joy, and--but for its simple vanity,-- To pray with all the earnestness of nature for souls who cannot change. For the tree is felled, and boughed, and bare, and the Measurer standeth with His line; The chance is gone for ever, and is past the reach of prayer: For men and angels, good and ill, have rendered all their witness; The trial is over, the jury are gone in, and none can now be heard; Well are they agreed upon the verdict, just, and fixt, and final, And the sentence showeth clear, before the Judge hath spoken: Now,--while resting matter is at peace within the tomb, The conscious spirit watcheth in unspeakable suspense; Racked with a fearful looking-forward, or blissfully feeding on the foretaste, Waiting souls in eager expectation pass the solemn interval: They slumber not at death, but awaken, quickened to the terrors of the judgment; They lie not insensate among darkness, but exult, looking forward to the light: Idiotcy, brightening on the instant, when that veil is torn, Is grateful that his torpor here hath left him as an innocent: The young child, stricken as he played, and guileless babes unborn, Freed from fetters of the flesh, burst into mind immediate: Madness judgeth wisely, and the visions of the lunatic are gone, And each hasteneth to praise the mercy that made him irresponsible. For the soul is one, though manifold in act, working the machinery of brain, Reason, fancy, conscience, passion, are but varying phases; If, in God's wise purpose, the machine were shattered or confused, Still is soul the same, though it exhibit with a difference: Therefore, dissipate the brain, and set its inmate free, Behold, the maniacs and embryos stand in their place intelligent. That solvent eateth away all dross, leaving the gold intact: Matter lingereth in the retort, spirit hath flown to the receiver: And lo, that recipient of the spirits, it is some aerial world, An oasis midway on the desert space, separating earth from heaven, A prison-house for essences incorporate, a limbus vague and wide, Tartarus for evil, and Paradise for good, that intermediate Hadës.