"In flying the herd, I have not escaped from myself; like the wounded deer, the barb was within me, and that I could not fly!" With these thoughts he turned from his reverie, and once more endeavoured to charm his own reflections by those which ought to speak to us of quiet, for they are graven on the pages of the dead; but his attempts were as idle as before. His thoughts were still wandering and confused, and could neither be quieted nor collected: he read, but he scarcely distinguished one page from another: he wrote--the ideas refused to flow at his call; and the only effort at connecting his feelings which even partially succeeded, was in the verses which I am about to place before the reader. It is a common property of poetry, however imperfectly the gift be possessed, to speak to the hearts of others in proportion as the sentiments it would express are felt in our own; and I subjoin the lines which bear the date of that evening, in the hope that, more than many pages, they will show the morbid yet original character of the writer, and the particular sources of feeling from which they took the bitterness that pervades them. KNOWLEDGE. Ergo hominum genus incassum frustraque laborat Semper, et in curis consumit inanibus aevum.--Lucret. 'Tis midnight! Round the lamp which o'er My chamber sheds its lonely beam, Is wisely spread the varied lore Which feeds in youth our feverish dream 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!