I feel in me all blest illusions wane That did my youth and dawn of life sustain; I loved them much, and to the bitter end I shall with tears their fond remembrance tend. When comes the time that frozen quite and hard My soul shall be, nor in the Heavens starred The clustering splendours give my spirit joy, My wondering thought in vague surmise employ; Nor sunny hills and lonely places smile, Nor warbling birds with early notes beguile My weary heart; nor, sailing in the sky, The queenly Moon be welcome to mine eye; When Art and Nature shall to me be dumb, And tender feelings like a stranger come: Then other lore, though less endeared, I'll choose That I the sense of bitter life may lose. My weary mind the wonders shall embrace That scholars seek and questioning sages trace, The bitter truth and dark reality, The goal of life that we so dimly see; Why brought to light and why surcharged with woe The countless generations here below; What Fate and Nature have for us in store; What laws ordain, what guides direct us o'er The perilous gulfs of Nature and of Time; These be the fountains of my thought sublime, The lofty theme of many a pensive rhyme. Thus I shall live; unhappy though it be, There are some charms in sad reality. But if my song unwelcome be or strange, I shall not grieve; for in its boundless range My spirit hath outsoared the love of Fame; She is a goddess only in her name; Than Fate and Love that rule our humankind So vaguely, so unwisely, she is far more blind.