The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made;
Stronger by weakness, wiser, men become
As they draw near to their eternal home.
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,
That stand upon the threshold of the new.
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Source, in full
On the Divine Poems (1686). Compare: "To vanish in the chinks that Time has made", Samuel Rogers, Pæstum; "As that the walls worn thin, permit the mind / To look out thorough, and his frailty find", Samuel Daniel, History of the Civil War, Book iv, Stanza 84.