What dost thou surely know?
What will the truth remain,
When from the world of men thou go
To the unknown again?

What science—of what hope?
What heart-loved certitude won
From thought shall then for scope
Be thine—thy thinking done?

'Tis said, that even the wise,
When plucking at the sheet,
Have smiled with swift-darkening eyes,
As if in vision fleet

Of some mere flower, or bird,
Seen in dream, or in childhood's play;
And then, without sign or word,
Have turned from the world away.