It will not burn as long as I must watch.
My slumbers - if I slumber - are not sleep,
But a continuance of enduring thought,
Which I can resist not. In my heart,
There is a vigil, and these eyes but close,
To look within, and yet I live, and bear,
The aspect, and the form of breathing men.
Sorrow is knowledge. They who know the most,
Must mourn he deepest o'er the fatal truth.
Philosophy and science, and the springs,
Of wonder and the wisdom of the world,
I have essay'd and in my mind there is,
A power to make these subject to itself.
But avail not, I have done men good,
But for this availed not, I have had my foes,
And none have baffled, many fallen before me
But this availed not good or evil life.
Power and passions, all I see in other beings,
Have been to me as rain unto the sands.
I have no dread, no natural fears,
No hopes or natural wishes,
Or lurking love of something on the earth.
Now to my task.