A "found poem" is what happens when someone recognizes the lyrical qualities of a pre-existing prose text and, like Michelangelo "freeing" the statues "imprisoned" within the marble, releases the underlying poetry.
(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_poem for a longer and more precise discussion.)
This text is from More Fruits of Solitude, by William Penn (1644-1716), founder of both the city of Philadelphia and the colony (now a U.S. state) that bears his family's name. Penn envisaged Pennsylvania as a "Holy Experiment" in the ideals of a just and equitable society espoused by his Quaker faith.
Readers of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books may recall seeing the following as a foreword to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and last novel in the series. More theologically-minded readers may also recognize these lines as a version of what is called the "Communion of Saints" in many Christian traditions.
Death
is but crossing the world,
as friends do the seas;
they live in one another
still.
For they must needs be present
that love and live
in that which is
omnipresent.
In this divine glass
they see face to face;
and their converse is
free,
as well as pure.
This is the comfort of friends,
that
though they may be said to die,
yet their friendship
and society
are,
in the best sense,
ever present,
because
immortal.
is but crossing the world,
as friends do the seas;
they live in one another
still.
For they must needs be present
that love and live
in that which is
omnipresent.
In this divine glass
they see face to face;
and their converse is
free,
as well as pure.
This is the comfort of friends,
that
though they may be said to die,
yet their friendship
and society
are,
in the best sense,
ever present,
because
immortal.
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