Classic Poem

This of you is not the best,
This little self so anxious here:
Partially you manifest,
But you are other than the mere
Mind and body you appear:
Behind the scenes it seems to me,
From day to day and year to year,
You remain essentially.

You wake and sleep: the small impress
Of things around soon passes: still
This consciousness is more or less
Some phosphorescence of the Will:
A surface light too weak to fill
The underlying entity
Whose lust of living naught may kill:
You remain essentially.

And while your body wears away,
And all your thoughts disintegrate,
You weave new vestures every day,
And dreams with dreams obliterate:
For you the outer ways await
Because of your desire to be:
But high or low, thro' every state,
You remain essentially.

From life to life you dwell within
A candle gleam of memory;
And as it vanishes—what then?
You remain essentially.