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And nurse "the dreadful appetite of death?"
If tired with Systems—each in its degree
Substantial—and all crumbling in their turn,
Let him build Systems of his own, and smile
At the fond work—demolished with a touch;
If unreligious, let him be at once,
Among ten thousand Innocents, enrolled
A Pupil in the many-chambered school,
Where Superstition weaves her airy dreams.
Life's Autumn past, I stand on Winter's verge,
And daily lose what I desire to keep:
Yet rather would I instantly decline
To the traditionary sympathies
Of a most rustic ignorance, and take
A fearful apprehension from the owl
Or death-watch,—and as readily rejoice,
If two auspicious magpies crossed my way;
This rather would I do than see and hear
The repetitions wearisome of sense,
Where soul is dead, and feeling hath no place;
Where knowledge, ill begun in cold remark
On outward things, with formal inference ends
