eternity

The perception of this law of laws awakens in the mind a sentiment which we call the religious sentiment, and which makes our highest happiness.  Wonderful is its power to charm and to command.  It is a mountain air.  It is the embalmer of the world.  It is myrrh and storax, and chlorine and rosemary.  It makes the sky and the hills sublime, and the silent song of the stars is it.  By it, is the universe made safe and habitable, not by science or power.  Thought may work cold and intransitive in things, and find no end or unity; but the dawn of the sentiment of virtue on the heart, gives and is the assurance that Law is sovereign over all natures; and the worlds, time, space, eternity, do seem to break out into joy.

You left me boundaries of pain
Capacious as the sea,
Between eternity and time,
Your consciousness and me.

Sssh says the ocean
Sssh says the small wave at the shore ~ sssh
not so violent, not
so proud, not
so remarkable.
Sssh
says the surf
crowding around the outcrops,
washing the shore. Sssh,
they say to people,
this is our Earth,
our eternity.

If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.

In the depths of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm as it was bright.

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.  In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in waking, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret.  In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil.

So there'll be no guiding light for you and me
We are not sailors lost out on the sea
We were always headed toward eternity
Hoping for a glimpse of Galilee

Awareness is everything. ... People worry a lot more about the eternity after their deaths than the eternity that happened before they were born.  But it's the same amount of infinity, rolling out in all directions from where we stand.