Thomas Creech

"But now suppose the soul, when separate, Could live, and think, in a divided state: Yet what is that to us, who are the whole, A frame composed of body, joined with soul? Nay, grant the scattered ashes of our urn, Be joined again, and life and sense return: Yet how can that concern us, when 'tis done, Since all the memory of past life is gone? Now we ne'er joy, nor grieve, to think that we Were heretofore, nor what those things will be, Which framed from us, the following age shall see. When we revolve, how numerous years have run, How oft the east beheld the rising sun E'er we began, and how the atoms move, How the unthinking seed forever strove; 'Tis probable, and reason's laws allow, These seeds of ours were once combined as now; Yet now who minds, who knows his former state? The interim of death, the hand of fate, Or stopped the seeds, or made them all commence Such motions, as destroyed the former sense."