Which would for ever close its dark career,
With the pale shroud and the remorseless bier;
When the harsh, sterile nothingness of life,
First breaks upon the hope-deluded breast,
And the heart sickens with the bootless strife
That wrings its chords, and longs to be at rest;
Ev'n if the blow that frees it from distress,
Should strike it into utter nothingness.

Ah, nothingness! The thought at times will come,
The mind will wrestle with the mystery
That clouds its being! from its clay-made home,
Its dwelling of a m6ment, it will flee
Into the far depths of the vast UNKNOWN,
In its vain searchings for th' eternal throne
Of that Omnipotence which gave it birth,
And, giving it a nature which might suit
A seraph, bound its destiny to earth!
And a few years, in which to eat the fruit
Of life's strange tree, so bitter at its core,
Then death, the quiet grave, sleep, and--what more?

Whence came we? whither go we? All is still
And voiceless in the past! A veil is drawn
Across the future! by life's mystic rill
We sit and ponder, watching for the dawn
Of some yet unconceived, far-reaching thought,
By which our nature's secret shall be taught!
Why sorrow is our element--why sin
Is native in us--by what curse we bear