While yet in mother’s womb,—while yet without a name.
The wretch is he conceived for wretchedness’ sad thirst.
Each soul is marked for future bliss or woe, at first.[379]
The body, as a mother, bears within a soul.
Death’s but the throes that launch the spirit to its goal.15
Departed souls are all agog at each fresh birth,
To see what class the new-born enters in its mirth.
The blacks presume ’twill prove to be of their dark gang;
The pale-faced Romans hope they’ll profit by the pang.
But when the little stranger shows itself at last,