But So Many Books Thou

For What Wears Out The Life Of Mortal Men? 'tis That From Change To Change Their Being Rolls; Tis That Repeated Shocks, Again, Again, Exhaust The Energy Of Strongest Souls And Numb The Elastic Powers.

The Sea Of Faith Was Once, Too, At The Full, And Round Earth's Shore Lay Like The Folds Of A Bright Girdle Furled. But Now I Only Hear Its Melancholy, Long, Withdrawing Roar, Retreating, To The Breath Of The Night-wind, Down The Vast Edges Drear And Naked Shingles Of The World.

The Word "god" Is Used In Most Cases As By No Means A Term Of Science Or Exact Knowledge, But A Term Of Poetry And Eloquence, A Term Thrown Out, So To Speak, As A Not Fully Grasped Object Of The Speaker's Consciousness -- A Literary Term, In Short; And Mankind Mean Different Things By It As Their Consciousness Differs.

Unquiet Souls. In The Dark Fermentation Of Earth, In The Never Idle Workshop Of Nature, In The Eternal Movement, Yea Shall Find Yourselves Again.

The Highest Reach Of Science Is, One May Say, An Inventive Power, A Faculty Of Divination, Akin To The Highest Power Exercised In Poetry; Therefore, A Nation Whose Spirit Is Characterised By Energy May Well Be Eminent In Science; And We Have Newton. Shakspeare [sic] And Newton: In The Intellectual Sphere There Can Be No Higher Names. And What That Energy, Which Is The Life Of Genius, Above Everything Demands And Insists Upon, Is Freedom; Entire Independence Of All Authority, Prescription And Routine, The Fullest Room To Expand As It Will.