0, mentis vanitas! 0, assishness of Man! What boots it me, alas! that with enormous toil I snore through Paracelsus, Plato, Bacon, Boyle, And other humdrum humbugs? Chasing the Tree Of Knowledge, I have trudged from Bershebah to Dan, And all is barren! - I have spent my midnight oil For nought, and sown my seeds upon a stony soil, And now the Mills of Science yield me only bran! Therefore Philosophy, I guess, is not the ticket; Therefore I'll cut and run from all my books, and seek Some savage mountain-den or wild outlandish thicket, And there keep cudgelling my brains from week to week, Till I discover how, despite Miss Fortune's frowns, I may, by hook or crook, make prize of Three Half-Crcwns. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE ART OF PRESERVING HEALTH: BOOK 2. THE GASTRIC MUSE by JOHN ARMSTRONG TO THE SHAH (2) by AWHAD AD-DIN 'ALI IBN VAHID MUHAMMAD KHAVARANI MY SOUL by NETTIE STEPHENSON BOWEN HUGH STUART BOYD: HIS DEATH, 1848 by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING LATE SNOW IN THE SMOKIES by ELIZABETH JONES BROWNING ON THE GROUND OF TRUE AND FALSE RELIGION by JOHN BYROM SONNET ON THE NUPTIALS OF THE MARQUIS ANTONIO CAVALLI by GEORGE GORDON BYRON |