Later Life: a Double Sonnet of Sonnets

The wise do send their hearts before them to / Dear blesséd Heaven, despite the veil between; / The foolish nurse their hearts within the screen / Of this familiar world, where all we do / Or have is old, for there is nothing new: / Yet elder far that world we have not seen; / God's Presence antedates what else hath been: / Many the foolish seem, the wise seem few. / Oh foolishest fond folly of a heart / Divided, neither here nor there at rest! / That hankers after Heaven, but clings to earth; / That neither here nor there knows thorough mirth, / Half-choosing, wholly missing, the good part: -- / Oh fool among the foolish, in thy quest.