Affectus

Ego te per omne quod datum mortalibus
et destinatum saeculum est,
claudente donec continebor corpore,
discernam orbe quolibet,

nec ab orbe longe nec remotum lumine
tenebo fibris insitum,
videbo corde, mente complectar pia
ubique praesentem mihi.

et cum solutus corporali carcere
terraque provolavero,
quo me locarit axe communis pater
illic quoque animo te geram.

neque finis idem qui meo me corpore
et amore laxabit tuo.
mens quippe, lapsis quae superstes artubus
de stirpe durat caeliti,

sensus necesse est simul et affectus suos
retineat ut vitam suam;
et ut mori sic oblivisci non capit,
perenne vivax et memor.

(Paulinus of Nola, Carm. 11.49-68)

Throughout the entire span granted and allotted to humankind, for so long as I am contained by this confining body, I may be separated from you by the length of a world, but you will not be far from my face or removed from my eyes. I shall hold you fast within me. I shall see you with my heart’s eye and embrace you with loving mind. You will be before me everywhere. When I am freed from the prison of my body and fly forth from the earth, whatever the heavenly region where our common Father sets me, even there I shall have you in mind. The death which looses me from my body will not loose me from your love, for the mind survives the limbs which fall away, and lives on because its birth is divine. So it must keep its feeling and affections as it keeps its life, and it admits forgetfulness no more than death. It lives and it remembers forever. (tr. Patrick Gerard Walsh)