University of Virginia Library

SCENE III.

—A Forest among the euganean hills.
Julian.
Jul.
—How wearily time lingers with the wretch!
The hours that pass so swiftly o'er our joys,
Yet eke their moments out to mock our woes.
Where now are all those gorgeous images
With which our youthful fancy peopled life?
The thoughts, the dreams, the hopes, the aspirations,
That in our minds were as the stars in heaven—
The flowers on earth—the blossoms of the tree!
How years and disappointment's hand restore
Them to their pristine elements, and leave
The empty heart a miserable ruin!
A ruin round whose early walls there clung
How many—oh! how many lovely things—
All faded, withered, fallen, past away!
O God! that all our smiles must turn to tears!
That all our happiness must change to sorrow!
And the great soul, that spurns adversity,
Must bend in slavery to the body's yoke!
Lo! I am grown right lean and hungry on
Philosophy! All things in nature feed
One on another, or they die and perish,
Even as these sinless leaves and flowers! Ay, hunger
Still links us to the most detested shifts!
Hunger! the body hungers—and the soul
Is hungry too—all things in nature hunger
One for another! Autumn hungers after
The dying glories of the spectral boughs—
Beast prowls for beast—man laps the blood of man—
While, death, triumphantly, with hideous jaws,
Hungers to swallow all into the tomb!
Accursed life! and thrice accursed death!