I oped the mysterious book

that men call Life,

and scanned through it page after page

variously rife

with laughters, loves, and luminous joys

annal’d starwhite

that whiter seem’d beside the lamp

shedding pale light,

when asudden crackling, the flame

luridly glowed

and lit the space betwixt the lines

and strangely showed

deceits, greeds, lusts, hopes, despairs, hates

in mingled rout–

I shrank aghast; a moth dash'd past,

the lamp flared out!