The Spirit spurns its prison-bars,
    And feels with force endued
To scale the ramparts of the stars
    And storm Infinitude.

Youth passes; like a dungeon grows
    The Spirit’s house of clay:
The voice that once in music rose
    In murmurs dies away.

But in the day when sickness sore
    Smites on the body’s walls,
The Soul’s Voice through the breach once more
    Like to a trumpet calls.

Well shall it be with him who heeds
    The mystic summons then!
His after-life with loving deeds
    Shall blossom amongst men.

He shall have gifts—the gift that feels
    The germ within the clod,
And hears the whirring of the wheels
    That turn the mills of God!

The gift that sees with glance profound
    The secret soul of things,
And in the silence hears the sound
    Of vast and viewless wings!

The veil of Isis sevenfold
    To him as gauze shall be,
Wherethrough, clear-eyed, he shall behold
    The Ancient Mystery.

He shall do battle for the True,
    Defend till death the Right,
With Shoes of Swiftness Wrong pursue,
    With Sword of Sharpness smite.

And, dying, he shall haply hear,
    Like golden trumpets blown
For joy, far voices sweet and clear—
    Soul-voices like his own.

So welcomed may he join the Throng
    Upon the Shining Shore,
As one who, after wandering long,
    Returneth home once more!