the wisdom of a philosopher; so he is reminded that the vast ocean will roll a million of years after the man is gone and forgotten; and he is then surprised—yea, astonished—at himself for having presumed to ask these questions; and conscientious as he is conscious, he hastens to acknowledge—
"It were vain to ask, as thou rollest afar,
Of banner, or mariner, ship or star;
It were vain to seek in thy stormy face
Some tale of the sorrowful past to trace.
Thou art swelling high, thou art flashing free,
How vain are the questions we ask of thee!"
Again the wave demands his attention; it recedes, but is followed by another; by a third; then by a fourth, a fifth, a sixth; and then comes the seventh that overrides them all. This is in turn overwhelmed by another seventh; and so on throughout the days. Like the true poet, he again drinks in a lesson as a thinks of the Napoleons, the Caesars, the Alexanders, that were overwhelmed by some higher wave in the tide of human affairs; and he teaches us the vanity of ambition, and the certainty of death, as he applies the lesson to himself in these words—
"I, too, am a wave on a stormy sea;
I, too, am a wanderer, driven like thee;
I, too, am seeking a distant land,
To be lost and gone ere I reach the strand;
For the land I seek is a waveless shore,
And they who once reach it shall wander no more."
