The dream—the thirst—the wild desire,
Delirious yet divine-to know;
Around to roam—above aspire
And drink the breath of Heaven below!
From Ocean-Earth-the Stars-the Sky
To lift mysterious Nature's pall;
And bare before the kindling eye
In MAN the darkest mist of all—
Alas! what boots the midnight oil?
The madness of the struggling mind?
Oh, vague the hope, and vain the toil,
Which only leave us doubly blind!
What learn we from the Past? the same
Dull course of glory, guilt, and gloom—
I ask'd the Future, and there came
No voice from its unfathom'd womb.
The Sun was silent, and the wave;
The air but answer'd with its breath
But Earth was kind; and from the grave
Arose the eternal answer—Death!
And this was all! We need no sage
To teach us Nature's only truth!
O fools! o'er Wisdom's idle page
To waste the hours of golden youth!
In Science wildly do we seek
What only withering years should bring
The languid pulse—the feverish cheek
The spirits drooping on their wing!
To think—is but to learn to groan
To scorn what all beside adore
To feel amid the world alone,
An alien on a desert shore;
To lose the only ties which seem
To idler gaze in mercy given!
To find love, faith, and hope, a dream,
And turn to dark despair from heaven!
I pass on to a wilder period of my history. The passion, as yet only revealed by the eye, was now to be recorded by the lip; and the scene which witnessed the first confession of the lovers was worthy of the last conclusion of their loves!