verse translations
Marie Borroff
Symbolism and Theme
Eternity is not perpetual duration, "longer than" time; it is the absence of time. So too with the worth of the heavenly pearl. It is not "greater than" the worth of anything on earth; it is absolute, literally "beyond measure." Nearer and farther, earlier and later, lower and higher, less and more--all are interdependent manifestations of a dimensional mode of being in which men, under the governance of changing fortune, move toward certain death. "We look before and after, And pine for what is not."
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