"Senseless and in unutterable anguish, his cry went forth to heaven: 'Grant me but youth again! O, father, place me but once again upon the starting-point of life, that I may choose otherwise!' "But his father and his youth were far away. He beheld wandering lights dance upon the marshes, and disappear upon the graveyards; and he exclaimed, 'These are my days of folly!' "He beheld a star shoot through the heaven, and vanish: it glimmered as it fell, and disappeared upon the earth. 'Such, too, am I!' whispered his bleeding heart; and the serpent-tooth of remorse struck afresh into its wounds. "His heated fancy pictured to him night-wandering forms slow-creeping upon the house-tops; the windmill raised its arm, and threatened to fell him to the earth; and in the tenantless house of death, the only remaining mask assumed imperceptibly his own features. "At once, in the midst of this delirium, the sounds from the steeple, welcoming the new year, fell upon his ear, like distant church music. "He was moved, but to a gentler mood. He gazed around, unto the horizon, and looked forth upon the wide earth; and he thought of the friends of his youth, who, happier and better than he, were now teachers upon the earth, fathers of happy children, and blessed each in his condition. "'Alas! and I, too, like ye, might now be sleeping peacefully and tearless through this first night of the year, had I willed so! I too might have been happy, ye dear parents, had I fulfilled your new-year's wishes and admonitions!' "In the feverish reminiscences of his youth, it seemed to him as if the mask which had assumed his features in the house of death arose, and grew into a living youth, and his former blooming figure stood before him in the bitter mockery of illusion. "He could look no longer; he hid his eyes, a flood of hot tears streamed forth and were lost in the snow. And he sighed, now more gently, and despairing, 'Return but again, O youth, come once again!' "And youth did return; for he had but dreamed thus fearfully in the new-year's night. He was still young; but his sinful wanderings, they had been no dream; and he thanked God that he could yet turn from the miry ways of vice, and again choose the sunny path which leadeth unto the pure land of the harvest of righteousness. "Turn thou with him, young man, if thou standest upon his path of error. This fearful dream will in a future be thy judge; but shouldst thou ever exclaim, in the bitterness of remorse, 'Return, fair time of youth!'--youth will not come when thou dost call for her."