e the future to
myself--three, five, ten, twenty, fifty anniversaries of that fatal epoch
might elapse--every year containing twelve months, each of more numerous
calculation in a diary, than the twenty-five days gone by--Can it be?
Will it be?--We had been used to look forward to death tremulously--
wherefore, but because its place was obscure? But more terrible, and far
more obscure, was the unveiled course of my lone futurity. I broke my wand;
I threw it from me. I needed no recorder of the inch and barley-corn growth
of my life, while my unquiet thoughts created other divisions, than those
ruled over by the planets--and, in looking back on the age that had
elapsed since I had been alone, I disdained to give the name of days and
hours to the throes of agony which had in truth portioned it out.

I hid my face in my hands. The twitter of the young birds going to rest,
and their rustling among the trees, disturbed the still evening-air--the
crickets chirped--the aziolo cooed at intervals. My thoughts had been of
death--these sounds spoke to me of life. I lifted up my eyes--a bat
wheeled round--the sun had sunk behind the jagged line of mountains, and
the paly, crescent moon was visible, silver white, amidst the orange
sunset, and accompanied by one bright star, prolonged thus the twilight. A
herd of cattle passed along in the dell below, untended, towards their
watering place--the grass was rustled by a gentle breeze, and the
olive-woods, mellowed into soft masses by the moonlight, contrasted their
sea-green with the dark chestnut foliage. Yes, this is the earth; there is
no change--no ruin--no rent made in her verdurous expanse; she
continues to wheel round and round, with alternate night and day, through
the sky, though man is not her adorner or inhabitant. Why could I not
forget myself like one of those animals, and no longer suffer the wild
tumult of misery that I endure? Yet, ah! what a deadly breach yawns between
their state and mine! Have not they companions? Have not they each their
mate--their cherished young, their home, which, though unexpressed to us,
is, I doubt not, endeared and enriched, even in their eyes, by the society
which kind nature has created for them? It is I only that am alone--I, on
this little hill top, gazing on plain and mountain recess--on sky, and
its starry population, listening to every sound of earth, and air, and
murmuring wave,--I only cannot express to any companion my many thoughts,