The thorns shoot up! What thorns in every thought!
Why sense of better? It embitters worse.
Why sense? why life? If but to sigh, then sink 670
To what I was! twice nothing! and much woe!
Woe, from Heaven’s bounties! woe from what was wont
To flatter most, high intellectual powers.
Thought, virtue, knowledge!—blessings, by thy scheme,
All poison’d into pains. First, knowledge, once 675
My soul’s ambition, now her greatest dread.
To know myself, true wisdom?—No, to shun