How far from here to heaven?
Not very far, my friend;
A single hearty step
Will all thy journey end.
Hold, there! where runnest thou?
Know heaven is _in_ thee!
Seek'st thou for God elsewhere?
His face thou'lt never see.
Go out, God will go in;
Die thou, and let him live;
Be not, and he will be;
Wait, and he'll all things give.
I don't believe in death.
If hour by hour I die,
'Tis hour by hour to gain
A better life thereby.
--Angelus Silesius, A. D. 1620.
The chamber where the good man meets his fate
Is privileged beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.
--Edward Young.
Life-embarked, out at sea, 'mid the wave-tumbling roar,
The poor ship of my body went down to the floor;
But I broke, at the bottom of death, through a door,
And, from sinking, began for ever to soar.
--From the Persian.
Truths that wake to perish never;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor,
Nor man, nor boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy
Can utterly abolish or destroy!
Hence in a season of calm weather,
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither;
Can in a moment travel thither
And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
--William Wordsworth.