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Home  »  A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895  »  Immortality

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

George William Russell 1867–1935

Immortality

RusslG

WE must pass like smoke or live within the spirit ’s fire,

For we can no more than smoke unto the flame return,

If our thought has changed to dream or will unto desire.

As smoke we vanish though the fire may burn.

Lights of infinite pity star the gray dusk of our days:

Surely here is soul; with it we have eternal breath:

In the fire of love we live or pass by many ways,

By unnumbered ways of dream to death.