To rest in idle stillness naught may dare.
All must move onward, help transform the mass,
Assume a form, to yet another pass;
'Tis but in seeming aught is fixed or still.
In all things moves the eternal restless Thought;
For all, when comes the hour, must fall to naught
If to persist in being is its will.


LINES ON SEEING SCHILLER'S SKULL[30] (1826)

[This curious imitation of the ternary metre of Dante was written at
the age of seventy-seven.]

Within a gloomy charnel-house one day
I viewed the countless skulls, so strangely mated,
And of old times I thought that now were gray.
Close packed they stand that once so fiercely hated,
And hardy bones that to the death contended,
Are lying crossed,--to lie forever, fated.
What held those crooked shoulder-blades suspended?
No one now asks; and limbs with vigor fired,
The hand, the foot--their use in life is ended.
Vainly ye sought the tomb for rest when tired;
Peace in the grave may not be yours; ye're driven
Back into daylight by a force inspired;
But none can love the withered husk, though even
A glorious noble kernel it contained.

To me, an adept, was the writing given