Matter And Mind Poem by John Bowring

If in the vast material world
No atom ever perished-though
In multitudinous changes hurl'd
Upwards and downwards, to and fro,
And all that in the present orb'd
From silent growth and sudden storms,
Is but a former past absorb'd
In ever-shifting frames, and forms,-


If He who made the worlds that were,
And makes the worlds that are to be,
Has with all-wise, all-potent care
Preserved the smallest entity
Imperishable-though it pass
From shape to shape, by heat or cold
Dispersed, attracted, monad, mass-
A wind-blown sand, a solid mould,-


Shall He not save those nobler things,
Those elements of mind and thought,
Whose marvellous imaginings
Have the great deeds of progress wrought?
Those instincts, be they what they may,
Of which the soul of man is made,
By which he works his wondrous way
Up to light's very fountain head?


From earth's untold materials, man
Can build, unbuild, can break or bind;
But from mind's elements who can
Transform, create another mind?
Who rear new piles of thought from aught
Of thought surviving its decay-
Who ever from the grave has brought
A spirit that had passed away?


If God have left no blank-no void
Unfilled,-if in Creation's reign.
Nothing is born to be destroyed
Or perish-but to live again;-
If in the cycles of the earth
No atom of that earth can die-
The soul, which is of nobler birth,
Must live,-and live eternally.