In time-destroying infiniteness gift
With self-enshrined eternity, that mocks
The unprevailing hoariness of age, 440
And man, once fleeting o’er the transient scene
Swift as an unremembered vision, stands
Immortal upon earth:  no longer now
He slays the beast that sports around his dwelling
And horribly devours its mangled flesh, 445
Or drinks its vital blood, which like a stream
Of poison thro’ his fevered veins did flow
Feeding a plague that secretly consumed
His feeble frame, and kindling in his mind
Hatred, despair, and fear and vain belief, 450
The germs of misery, death, disease and crime. 
No longer now the winged habitants,
That in the woods their sweet lives sing away,
Flee from the form of man; but gather round,
And prune their sunny feathers on the hands 455
Which little children stretch in friendly sport
Towards these dreadless partners of their play. 
All things are void of terror:  man has lost
His desolating privilege, and stands
An equal amidst equals:  happiness 460
And science dawn though late upon the earth;
Peace cheers the mind, health renovates the frame;
Disease and pleasure cease to mingle here,
Reason and passion cease to combat there;
Whilst mind unfettered o’er the earth extends 465
Its all-subduing energies, and wields
The sceptre of a vast dominion there.

Mild is the slow necessity of death: 
The tranquil spirit fails beneath its grasp,
Without a groan, almost without a fear, 470
Resigned in peace to the necessity,
Calm as a voyager to some distant land,
And full of wonder, full of hope as he. 
The deadly germs of languor and disease
Waste in the human frame, and Nature gifts 475
With choicest boons her human worshippers. 
How vigorous now the athletic form of age! 
How clear its open and unwrinkled brow! 
Where neither avarice, cunning, pride, or care,
Had stamped the seal of grey deformity 480
On all the mingling lineaments of time. 
How lovely the intrepid front of youth! 
How sweet the smiles of taintless infancy.

Within the massy prison’s mouldering courts,
Fearless and free the ruddy children play, 485
Weaving gay chaplets for their innocent brows
With the green ivy and the red wall-flower,
That mock the dungeon’s unavailing gloom;
The ponderous chains, and gratings of strong iron,
There rust amid the accumulated ruins 490
Now mingling slowly with their native earth: 
There the broad beam of day, which feebly once
Lighted the cheek of lean captivity
With a pale and sickly glare, now freely shines
On the pure smiles of infant playfulness:  495
No more the shuddering voice of hoarse despair
Peals through the echoing vaults, but soothing notes
Of ivy-fingered winds and gladsome birds
And merriment are resonant around.