Classic Poem

These little limbs,
These Eyes and Hands which here I find,
This panting Heart wherewith my Life begins;
Where have ye been? Behind
What Curtain were ye from me hid so long?
Where was, in what Abyss, my new-made Tongue?

When silent I
So many thousand thousand Years
Beneath the Dust did in a Chaos lie,
How could I Smiles, or Tears,
Or Lips, or Hands, or Eyes, or Ears perceive?
Welcome ye Treasures which I now receive.

I that so long
Was Nothing from Eternity,
Did little think such Joys as Ear and Tongue
To celebrate or see:
Such Sounds to hear, such Hands to feel, such Feet,
Such Eyes and Objects, on the Ground to meet.

New burnisht Joys!
Which finest Gold and Pearl excell!

Such sacred Treasures are the Limbs of Boys
In which a Soul doth dwell:
Their organized Joints and azure Veins
More Wealth include than the dead World contains.

From Dust I rise
And out of Nothing now awake;
These brighter Regions which salute mine Eyes
A Gift from God I take:
The Earth, the Seas, the Light, the lofty Skies,
The Sun and Stars are mine; if these I prize.

A Stranger here
Strange things doth meet, strange Glory see,
Strange Treasures lodg'd in this fair World appear,
Strange all and New to me:

But that they mine should be who Nothing was,
That Strangest is of all; yet brought to pass. .