Where bodily ye have never stood, finding your own footsteps?
Hath not at times some recent friend looked out an old familiar,
Some newest circumstance or place teemed as with ancient memories?
A startling sudden flash lighteth up all for an instant,
And then it is quenched, as in darkness, and leaveth the cold spirit trembling.
Memory is not wisdom; idiots can rote volumes:
Yet, what is wisdom without memory? a babe that is strangled in its birth,
The path of the swallow in the air, the path of the dolphin in the waters,
A cask running out, a bottomless chasm: such is wisdom without memory.