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!
To think--is but to learn to groan To scorn what all beside adore To feel amid the world alone, An alien on a desert shore;
To lose the only ties which seem To idler gaze in mercy given! To find love, faith, and hope, a dream, And turn to dark despair from heaven!
I pass on to a wilder period of my history. The passion, as yet only revealed by the eye, was now to be recorded by the lip; and the scene which witnessed the first confession of the lovers was worthy of the last conclusion of their loves!
E------ was about twelve miles from a celebrated cliff on the seashore, and Lady Margaret had long proposed an excursion to a spot, curious alike for its natural scenery and the legends attached to it. A day was at length fixed for accomplishing this plan. Falkland was of the party. In searching for something in the pockets of the carriage, his hand met Emily’s, and involuntarily pressed it. She withdrew it hastily, but he felt it tremble. He did not dare to look up: that single contact had given him a new life: intoxicated with the most delicious sensations, he leaned back in silence. A fever had entered his veins--the thrill of the touch had gone like fire into his system--all his frame seemed one nerve.