ABSTRACT
Fourth and last of the ‘Mary’ group of poems in Esd, written in November 1810 (see headnote to No. 38). The frank dualism and belief in immortality of stanzas 1–2 are neither endorsed nor rejected by the author, but portrayed as attractive hypotheses (‘O this were joy’). In stanza 3 S. recommends (with a Biblical allusion) outsoaring Heaven by working for a Paradise on earth (cp. PU III iv 202–3).
