Newton, (that Proverb of the Mind,) alas! Declared, with all his grand discoveries recent, That he himself felt only “like a youth Picking up shells by the great Ocean-Truth.”
The lapse of ages changes all things – time, language, the earth, the bounds of the sea, the stars of the sky, and every thing about, around, and underneath man, except man himself.
Roll on, deep and dark blue ocean, roll. Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain. Man marks the earth with ruin, but his control stops with the shore.
What should I have known or written had I been a quiet, mercantile politician or a lord in waiting? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence.
