His own dim consciousness should teach him thus much, that Life will never
be extinguished. Else all here is but dust and ashes. The earth, "this
round of green," and sun, "this orb of flame," are but "fantastic
beauty"--such as a wild Poet might invent, who has neither conscience nor
aim.
Even God can be nothing to the writer, if all around him is doomed to
perish; and he will not himself wait in patience, but rather "sink to
peace;" and, like the birds that are charmed by the serpent[25] into its
mouth, he will "drop head-foremost in the jaws of vacant darkness," and so
cease to exist.