“Man’s life is like a sparrow, mighty King!

That—while at banquet with your Chiefs you sit

Housed near a blazing fire—is seen to flit

Safe from the wintry tempest. Fluttering,

Here did it enter; there, on hasty wing,

Flies out, and passes on from cold to cold;

But whence it came we know not, nor behold

Whither it goes. Even such that transient thing,

The human Soul; not utterly unknown

While in the Body lodged, her warm abode;