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Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

VII. Death: Immortality: Heaven

“It kindles all my soul”

Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski (1595–1640)

From the Latin by John Mason Neale

“Urit me Patriæ decor.”

IT kindles all my soul,

My country’s loveliness! Those starry choirs

That watch around the pole,

And the moon’s tender light, and heavenly fires

Through golden halls that roll.

O chorus of the night! O planets, sworn

The music of the spheres

To follow! Lovely watchers, that think scorn

To rest till day appears!

Me, for celestial homes of glory born,

Why here, O, why so long,

Do ye behold an exile from on high?

Here, O ye shining throng,

With lilies spread the mound where I shall lie:

Here let me drop my chain,

And dust to dust returning, cast away

The trammels that remain;

The rest of me shall spring to endless day!