| HAPPY those early days, when I | |
| Shin'd in my angel-infancy ! | |
| Before I understood this place | |
| Appointed for my second race, | |
| Or taught my soul to fancy ought | 5 |
| But a white, celestial thought ; | |
| When yet I had not walk'd above | |
| A mile or two from my first love, | |
| And looking back—at that short space— | |
| Could see a glimpse of His bright face ; | 10 |
| When on some gilded cloud, or flow'r, | |
| My gazing soul would dwell an hour, | |
| And in those weaker glories spy | |
| Some shadows of eternity ; | |
| Before I taught my tongue to wound | 15 |
| My conscience with a sinful sound, | |
| Or had the black art to dispense | |
| A sev'ral sin to ev'ry sense, | |
| But felt through all this fleshly dress | |
| Bright shoots of everlastingness. | 20 |
| O how I long to travel back, | |
| And tread again that ancient track ! | |
| That I might once more reach that plain, | |
| Where first I left my glorious train ; | |
| From whence th' enlighten'd spirit sees | 25 |
| That shady City of palm-trees. | |
| But ah ! my soul with too much stay | |
| Is drunk, and staggers in the way ! | |
| Some men a forward motion love, | |
| But I by backward steps would move ; | 30 |
| And when this dust falls to the urn, | |
| In that state I came, return. | |