Exhausting thought, And hiving wisdom with each studious year.
Gone, glimmering through the dream of things that were.
By Heaven! it is a splendid sight to see For one who hath no friend, no brother there.
And dreams in their development have breath, And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy; They have a weight upon our waking thoughts, They take a weight from off our waking toils, They do divide our being.
O Gold! I still prefer thee unto paper, which makes bank credit like a bark of vapour.
Then, fare thee well, deceitful Maid!
Such is your cold coquette, who can’t say “No,” And won’t say “Yes,” and keeps you on and off-ing On a lee-shore, till it begins to blow, Then sees your heart wreck’d, with an inward scoffing.
Nor all that heralds rake from coffin’d clay, Nor florid prose, nor honied lies of rhyme, Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime.
And Doubt and Discord step ’twixt thine and thee.
Better to sink beneath the shock Than moulder piecemeal on the rock!
The sky is changed,-and such a change! O night And storm and darkness! ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman! Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, Leaps the live thunder.
Yet smelt roast meat, beheld a huge fire shine, And cooks in motion with their clean arms bared.
But at sixteen the conscience rarely gnaws So much, as when we call our old debts in At sixty years, and draw the accounts of evil, And find a deuced balance with the devil.
Well, well, the world must turn upon its axis, And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails, And live and die, make love and pay our taxes, And as the veering winds shift, shift our sails.
The truly brave are soft of heart and eyes, and feel for what their duty bids them do.
Tis not on youth’s smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast, But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.
A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
Yet still there whispers the small voice within, Heard through Gain’s silence, and o’er Glory’s din; Whatever creed be taught or land be trod, Man’s conscience is the oracle of God.
I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs, A palace and a prison on each hand.
They used to say that knowledge is power. I used to think so, but I know now they mean money.