His birth of yesterday,

To-morrow pass’d away;—

His life the shadow of a summer cloud;

Shall mortal man be vain

Of knowledge he may gain

In the brief span of time to earth allow’d?

Not that we under-rate

Or lightly estimate

The triumphs won by many an honour’d name

Of those whose midnight oil,

And unremitting toil,

In outward lore have won them worldly fame.

Yet, oh! how poor, and brief,

Like the frail Cistus’ leaf

Must knowledge be—confin’d to things of time;

Which, fetter’d by their thrall,

Is ignorant of all

That renders an eternity sublime.

What boots it to be vers’d

In systems schools have nurs’d,—

If, gaining all the lore that these impart,

That truth remain unknown,

Whose teaching power, alone,

Convicts, converts, and sanctifies the heart?