t boots the midnight oil?
The madness of the struggling mind?
Oh, vague the hope, and vain the toil,
Which only leave us doubly blind!

What learn we from the Past? the same
Dull course of glory, guilt, and gloom--
I ask'd the Future, and there came
No voice from its unfathom'd womb.

The Sun was silent, and the wave;
The air but answer'd with its breath
But Earth was kind; and from the grave
Arose the eternal answer--Death!

And this was all! We need no sage
To teach us Nature's only truth!
O fools! o'er Wisdom's idle page
To waste the hours of golden youth!

In Science wildly do we seek
What only withering years should bring
The languid pulse--the feverish cheek
The spirits drooping on their wing!

To think--is but to learn to groan
To scorn what all beside adore
To feel amid the world alone,
An alien on a desert shore;

To lose the only ties which seem
To idler gaze in mercy given!
To find love, faith, and hope, a dream,
And turn to dark despair from heaven!

I pass on to a wilder period of my history. The passion, as yet only
revealed by the eye, was now to be recorded by the lip; and the scene
which witnessed the first confession of the lovers was worthy of the
last conclusion of their loves!

E------ was about twelve miles from a celebrated cliff on the seashore,
and Lady Margaret had long proposed an excursion to a spot, curious
alike for its natural scenery and the legends attached to it. A day was
at length fixed for accomplishing this plan. Falkland was of the party.
In searching for something in the pockets of the carriage, his hand met
Emily's, and involuntarily pressed it. She withdrew it hastily, but he
felt it tremble. He did not dare to look up: that single contact had
given him a new life: intoxicated with the most delicious sensations, he
leaned back in silence. A fever had entered his veins--the thrill of
the touch had gone like fire into his system--all his frame seemed one
nerve.

Lady Margaret talked of the weather and the prospect, wondered how far
they had got, and animadverted on the roads, till at last, like a
child, she talked herself to rest. Mrs. Dalton read "Guy Mannering;" but
neither Emily nor her lover had any occupation or thought in common with
their co