Epigraph

Self of myself, unto the future age
Pass, murmuring low whate'er thine own has taught,
"I think, and therefore am,"--exclaim'd the Sage:
As now the Man, so henceforth be the page;
A life, because a thought.

Through various seas, exploring shores unknown,
A soul went forth, and here bequeaths its chart--
Here Doubt retains the question, Grief the groan,
And here may Faith still shine, as when she shone
And saved a sinking heart.

From the lost nectar-streams of golden youth,
From rivers loud with Babel's madding throng,
From wells whence Lore invokes reluctant Truth,
And that blest pool the wings of angels smooth,
Life fills mine urns of song.

Calmly to time I leave these images
Of things experienced, suffer'd, felt, and seen;
Fruits shed or tempest-torn from changeful trees,
Shells murmuring back the tides in distant seas--
Signs where a Soul has been.

As for the form Thought takes--the rudest hill
Echoes denied to gardens back may give;
Life speaks in all the forms which Thought can fill;
If thought once born can perish not--here still
I think, and therefore live!