midnight
It is a common property of poetry , however imperfectly the gift be possessed , to speak to the hearts of others in proportion as the sentiments it would express are felt in our own ; and I subjoin the lines which bear the date of that evening , in the hope that , more than many pages , they will show the morbid yet original character of the writer , and the particular sources of feeling from which they took the bitterness that pervades them . Ergo hominum genus incassum frustraque laborat Semper , et in curis consumit inanibus aevum . -- Lucret . 'T is midnight ! Round the lamp which o'er My chamber sheds its lonely beam , Is wisely spread the varied lore Which feeds in youth our feverish dream The dream -- the thirst -- the wild desire , Delirious yet divine-to know ; Around to roam -- above aspire And drink the breath of Heaven below ! From Ocean-Earth-the Stars-the Sky To lift mysterious Nature 's pall ; And bare before the kindling eye In MAN the darkest mist of all -- Alas ! what boots the midnight oil ?