A MISANTHROPE’S FAREWELL TO THE WORLD.

“Ferte per extremos gentes, et ferte per undas,

Qua non ulla meum femina norit iter.

Hoc, moneo, vitate malum.”

Propertius.

To distant climes of earth I flee,

Mid savage wilds my home to make,

Away beyond the raging sea,

Where man my quiet ne’er shall break.

For now my hardened heart to feeling steeled,

No more to human sympathy will yield.

No more shall woman’s witching smile

E’er haunt the recess of my cell;

No more my trusting heart beguile,

Which now has learned these tricks—too well:

For I have found her fickle, false, and vain,

And once deceived, will never be again.

Nor shall she in my summer bower,

When day has sped with all its care,

E’er greet me—at soft twilight’s hour,

In love to hold sweet converse there.

For passions rage and burn without control,

Where love, like poisoned daggers, stings the soul.

Fair Wisdom be the lovely maid

Whom I shall call to my embrace,

In whom my hopes of bliss are laid,

Since other love I now efface.

And happy thus, I then will spend my life

Free from the world’s temptation, toil, and strife.