90123: 'Science has looked . . .'

<p dir="ltr">Science has looked, and sees no life but this:<br> Or, at the most 'tis hypothetical.<br> 'Thou art as animals, as worms, as clay;<br> Earth---thy small planet, of a thousand, one---<br> Shall slowly waste, unto an outburnt ash;<br> And thou and all thy race, be blotted out,<br> For in the dissolution of man's brain<br> Himself dissolves, and passes into naught'...<br> O careful Science, thou had'st all my zeal,<br> But a Third Power smiles, and beckons me.<br> She is a wanton of too light a name<br> To hold the faith of most men in her heart.<br> Poor Poesy! She hath no constancy...<br> But yesterday she clung half- trustingly<br> To calm religion. Where is she today?<br> Clasping Cold Science with a grim embrace!<br> No constancy! But comforts manifold,<br> And therefore, lovely to a waif, like me!<br> Speak to me, Poesy! Give me on this height<br> The one true message of thy thousand oracles!<br> 'Yea? cryest thou so hungry for some Light?<br> Seek light no more! There is no Light as yet!<br> The Light that lights the soul shall be the last<br> Created thing; as that which lights the eye the first!<br> These mountains are the breasts of Mother Earth,<br> Nestle thou there, child; suck thy fill of joys.<br> And strive no more to look beyond thy Mother's arms.'<br> ---So? is it so? Then I will lie and rest.<br> O mountains, there comes over me this hour<br> A wondrous longing for my latest sleep.<br> I long to drowse, and fall upon eternal sleep;<br> I want to sleep, but not to dream, and not to wake;<br> Pass hence, and yet behold no region more;<br> Fade from this company of distracted men<br> Where all are mad deluders, or else sick deluded...<br> Now, Night, rise softly like a careful nurse:<br> Lower the lights of day round thy sick child:<br> For I would sleep ...<br> Poor I, who know not what I am, nor whence,<br> Would shake away this bitter case of flesh,<br> Even though naught remain when it is gone.<br> Would rid me of long deceiving blood;<br> How know I but at this very hour<br> My thoughts most high, most melancholy-grand,<br> Be not the chance-distemper of my pulse,<br> The doing of some small, intestine flaw!<br> O death, before I pluck my brain away,<br> Let me but sleep ...<br> My heart stops---it is well ...<br> O Light, which art but darkness,<br> O cruel world ...; O Men ...; O my own Self ...;<br> Farewell!</p>