With thee, Despair, must I then tread the path
Of tedious life, nor cast one look behind,
On all the piles of bliss gay Hope had rais'd?
But Heaven thought otherwise — O, generous world!
Thou who so frankly hold'st th'embitter'd draught,
Accept my surly thanks, and few are due
Where little is bestow'd. The reasoner raves,
Lifts the hard eye, and with long-winded speech,
And self-applauding dialect, condemns
My mind, thus straying from the trodden path:
I heed you not, nor have I time to spin
The thread of argument; yet fain wou'd know
The ready road to rest. Teach me, ye wise,
You who have trod the endless, endless whirl
Of measureless conjecture, still upheld
By brilliant Fancy's rapture-giving wing:
O you! whose spirits rove beyond yon orbs,
To find the realms of rest, for such there are,
To prove a home when the sad soul shall need it.
Imagination wanders, while the eye
Seems far extended, tho' the senseless balls
Distinguish nought, but, every sense call'd in,
Is buried in the dusky, deep recess
Of meditation. What's the grand result?
Ye studious sages, where's the fix'd abode?
Where's that eternal home, beyond the grave?
Oh! deign to tell a fellow-wretch like me,
Unwilling to be nothing; are not you?
Else why this search — and where's the great success?
Say, have you found it? can you teach the road
Which thither leads? Ah, no! th'accounts brought home
Differ so far, millions of Heavens are formed;
Each vain philosopher, by pride misled,
Presents you a futurity his own;
By that secur'd, the self-sufficient sage,
Indifferent, views the groupe of anxious souls
Searching the path to rest; if his they miss,
He swears no other way can e'er be found,
And then consigns them o'er to endless woe.