My life closed twice before its close－1
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive 5
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive 5
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
(F.1773/J.1732)
[1] life:: life sentence, imprisonment for life (OED 1893); the term life-sentence was used already in 1849. closed:: ended a trial. twice:: three types of court were established under the Judiciary Act of 1789, the trial court, appellate court, and supreme court. Here two trials have failed already.
[2] remains to see:: the first two sentences are not decisive.
[3] Immortality:: the truth, law is supposed to give the truth.
[4] third:: the supreme court trial.
[5-6] huge, hopeless, twice:: the narrator's pressure of the three level trials.
[7] Parting:: death; the parting in line 8 is omitted.
[8] hell:: Parting (to three trials) is all we need of hell; to be sentenced by parts is hell.
and longer than any other one who has ever been confined in the Prison, upon a life-sentence . . . The average period of imprisonment of all those sentenced for life to the State Prison, since 1818, amounting to 125, has not exceeded seven years. Nineteen of this number have died in the Prison after an average confinement of seven years. ─ Documents Relating to the State Prison By Massachusetts State Prison (1849)
