Oh, Life!

Oh, life! 'tis in an hour like this, with soul beat down and held to knowledge,—as wild, untutored things are forced to feed—Oh, life! 'tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! but 'tis not me! that horror's out of me! and with the soft feeling of the human
in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures! Stand by me, hold me, bind me, ye blessed influences!  --Moby-Dick, Dusk

Oh, Life! thou unsought mystery, that springs from nothingness, to grasp at Eternity. Eternity! Awful shadow! incomprehensible Dread! On whose black threshold the spirit shrinks shuddering, — till Hope comes, — like the star in the east.

--Scenes Beyond the Western Border, September 1852; and
Scenes and Adventures in the Army