Yet the moonlight is the sunlight and the sun himself will pass. - Alfred Tennyson

What hope is there for modern rhyme
To him, who turns a musing eye
On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie
Forshorten'd in the tract of time?

These mortal lullabies of pain
May bind a book, may line a box,
May serve to curl a maiden's locks;
Or when a thousand moons shall wane

A man upon a stall may find,
And, passing, turn the page that tells
A grief_ then changed to something else,
Sung by a long forgotten mind.

But what of that? My darken'd ways
Shall ring with music all the same;
To breathe my loss is more than fame,
To utter love more sweet than praise.

Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
Confusions of a wasted youth;
Forgive them where they fall in truth,
And in thy wisdom make me wise.

To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.