Sonnet Xxxvi. I Would Not Always Live Poem by Thomas Cogswell Upham

I would not always live. There's something here,
In this lone world of sorrow and of sin,
To which the purer heart, to virtue dear,
Finds no response, no sympathy within.
As when the rising sun dispels the cloud,
And spreads its glory o'er the dazzled sky,
So shall the mind cast off its moral shroud,
And bask in brightness, when it mounts on high.
That is its home; its high congenial place;
'Tis there, that, fitted with unearthly wings,
The spirit, running its eternal race,
And mounting ever up, triumphant sings.
I would not always live. Hail glorious day,
Which gives us heavenly life, and takes our house of clay.