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Sonnets Upon The Punishment Of Death - In Series, 1839 - X - Our Bodily Life, Some Plead, That Life The Shrine

By William Wordsworth

Topics: classic

Our bodily life, some plead, that life the shrine Of an immortal spirit, is a gift So sacred, so informed with light divine, That no tribunal, though most wise to sift Deed and intent, should turn the Being adrift Into that world where penitential tear May not avail, nor prayer have for God's ear A voice that world whose veil no hand can lift For earthly sight. "Eternity and Time," 'They' urge, "have interwoven claims and rights Not to be jeopardised through foulest crime: The sentence rule by mercy's heaven-born lights." Even so; but measuring not by finite sense Infinite Power, perfect Intelligence.

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"Our bodily life, some plead, that life the shrine..."

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Author:William Wordsworth

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"Our bodily life, some plead, that life the shrine..." by William Wordsworth

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William Wordsworth

About William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) was an English Romantic poet who launched the movement with Samuel Taylor Coleridge in "Lyrical Ballads" (1798). His poems—including "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" and "Tintern Abbey"—championed nature, memory, and the language of common speech.

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