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I / Ah! -- What should follow slips from my reflection; / Whatever follows ne'ertheless may be / As à-propos of hope or retrospection, / As though the lurking thought had follow'd free. / All present life is but an interjection, / An "Oh! " or "Ah! " of joy or misery, / Or a "Ha! ha! " or "Bah! " -- a yawn, or "Pooh! " / Of which perhaps the latter is most true.
II / But, more or less, the whole's a syncopé / Or a singultus -- emblems of emotion, / The grand antithesis to great ennui, / Wherewith we break our bubbles on the ocean, -- / That watery outline of eternity, / Or miniature at least, as is my notion, / Which ministers unto the soul's delight, / In seeing matters which are out of sight.