I am the family face;
Flesh perishes, I live on,
Projecting trait and trace
Through time to times anon,
And leaping from place to place
Over oblivion.
The years-heired feature that can
In curve and voice and eye
Despise the human span
Of durance -- that is I;
The eternal thing in man,
That heeds no call to die
Transcendental philosophy on ever eternal soul's never ending journey .
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Wonderful poem for humanists, pointing out that the nearest we have to immortality is our physical presence: our body, our intelligence, and aspects of our behaviour, all of which are inherited through our children, and which therefore live on in them. The irony here is that the part of us that does not survive our own death includes our personal memories which make up our sense of self, and which we fondly think of as part of our our soul.