Werner

The sole remaining good, if good it be, That yet is mine to share. I have tried all That earthly hope holds out to satisfy The longings of man's nature. I have loved, And made an idol of the thing I loved, And worshipped it with all my soul's intensity; And, for awhile, the frenzy of my dream Shut out all other thoughts. But it was short; Death plucked my lovely flower from my grasp, And then, the icy chill of desolation Came, like a snowy avalanche, upon My heart, and froze the fountains of its feeling. I was ambitious. I have striven for, And worn, the gaudiest wreath of fame, and when I would have placed it on my brow, it grew A mountain in its weight. I courted much The notice of the world, and when men praised, The very breath that bore their praise to me, Seemed clogged with pestilence.

Wealth, too, I coveted, And heaped its shining dust in hoards around me, And yet it was but dust, as barren of Enjoyment as the ground we tread upon. I clad myself in purple—heaped my board With all the fairest, sweetest fruits of earth, And filled my golden goblets with bright juice, Pressed from the goodliest grapes, and made my couch Of down, and yet, I was most wretched still. My garments were but cumbersome; my couch Could give no rest, and e'en my generous wines Could not remove the crushing weight that sat, Nightmare-like, on my heart, until it grew A palpable and keenly aching pang. There is, one path which yet remains untrod; To be my guide in it, I called thee hither,— 'Tis that of knowledge.