Truth’s tattered book on thriftless nature’s shelf?
CIII
Unlettered children, hopeless to the task,
And dumb before life’s riddles, still we ask;
But labour, sole, is answered—patient thought,
And science still doth nature make unmask.
CIV
Ah! what is life?—A coin but stamped and cast
Into time’s treasury, counted, weighed, and pass’d,